3D Parts Printing

[Wheelmang]

Has anyone looked into the feasibility of 3 D printing for replacement parts? I am thinking in particular right now about interior door handles and window cranks.

[TerryB]

You need a good CAD drawing of it to make it happen.  Very popular with making prototypes in industry, at least that’s what my mechanical design engineer son tells me.

Terry

[Spinneyhill]

Two ways to make the CAD drawing.

1. Measure and draw. You can do this.
2.  3D scan, repair drawing (this can take a while, too, as well as need another piece of kit).

[Terry Harper]

3D printed metal parts are feasible and have been used from sometime in other hobbies such as the Live Steam hobby and some industries - I believe awhile ago one manufacturer received certification to 3D print certain parts for use in turbine engines. However, as pointed out it has to start with an accurate 3D model. I teach CAD and in particular we work extensively with parametric modeling and additive manufacturing and CNC technologies. The printing is the easy part! Its modeling the component and determining tolerances and fit that takes a lot of time which adds up to a lot of cost if your paying someone else to do it. Fortunately 3D scanning technology is available and works wonders when applied to reverse engineering and quality control.

 

Recently I had a part scanned at the University Of Maine Advanced Manufacturing facility. Could I have it 3D printed in metal? yes. but the size of the print would make the cost prohibitive. The plan is to use the resulting 3D model to develop 3D printed/CNC patterns and core boxes and then use traditional foundry work to cast the finished part. It may sound more complex than printing the part but its more cost effective since with the exception of the foundry work I can do most of it myself.

 

Here is a video:

 

 

Here is a project we developed a few month ago and gives you a good idea of the work flow: Using patent drawings and measurements from original parts we reverse engineered a proprietary magneto coupling used on early Wisconsin engines (the big T-head watercooled models) Once the digital 3D model was created using Autodesk Inventor Professional, the shop drawings were developed and a mockup was 3D printed. The digital 3D model was than copied and modified to including such features as draft, shrinkage and machining allowance. We could have 3D printed the patterns but we chose to mill them out on the CNC mill so the completed files were imported into Fusion 360 where we added tool paths etc. than exported as G-Code to PathPilot which is the operating system for our CNC mill. Next its off to the foundry and then to be machined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1939_Buick]

Yes.

There are several forum threads on 3D printing.

And door hardware is a good candidate for 3D printing

[Durant Mike]

One of our club members in the Durant Motors Automobile Club had a distributor housing manufactured for our 1928/1929 cars done with the 3D process. Came out perfect and was an exact fit.  Price was not that expensive and it was done by a company in Washington State that makes aeronautical and space parts to high specifications.  Great for making parts you just can't seem to find anymore if you have the one prototype.

[Friartuck]

I guess there are two 3D options to consider: 1) 3D print a pattern in plastic and cast in lost wax method and 2) direct 3D printing which is improving in quality each year.

[Rusty_OToole]

Jay Leno has done a couple of videos on making antique car parts this way. The process keeps improving and it is now possible to 3d print metal.

[Restorer32]

More accurately it is now possible to 3D print parts from glued together metal powder.At this stage of the game it would he much faster and cheaper to make door handles by using the lost wax process to cast them in bronze or stainless. It will be a while before it will be economical to 3-D print functional metal parts, if ever.

[DavidMc]

I understand from talking with others with some experience in 3D printing of metals that it is a lot more than just "glued together metal powder".  

The parts are sintered :  "Sintering is a heat treatment applied to a powder compact in order to impart strength and integrity. The temperature used for sintering is below the melting point of the major constituent of the Powder Metallurgy material."

The process is now used for making medical implants so the technology must have advanced significantly.

It would be good to know more about this process and particularly the strength of the finished part.

 

[Spinneyhill]

A lot of 3D titanium printing development was done in Tauranga, I believe. Here is an interesting story.

https://idealog.co.nz/tech/2016/03/dust-bone-nzs-revolutionary-titanium-3d-printers

 

Here is just one of many web sites on 3D printing in metal. It is Selective Laser Melting (SLM), an additive technology. So the powder particles are fused together a bit like a laser printer does with toner powder.

http://www.rapidman.co.nz/3d-printing/

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by Spinneyhill (see edit history)

[DavidMc]

Very interesting and informative, so that is how the titanium is fused to form a solid part.  I guess the part fused by this process is not as strong as a conventionally cast part but it is obviously strong enough for many parts.

Cost is another issue, I understand the machines the perform this work are very expensive. 

[1939_Buick]

22 hours ago, Durant Mike said:

One of our club members in the Durant Motors Automobile Club had a distributor housing manufactured for our 1928/1929 cars done with the 3D process. Came out perfect and was an exact fit.  Price was not that expensive and it was done by a company in Washington State that makes aeronautical and space parts to high specifications.  Great for making parts you just can't seem to find anymore if you have the one prototype.

What material was it printed in?

Or printed a mould that was later used to cast the part?

[1939_Buick]

18 minutes ago, DavidMc said:

Cost is another issue, I understand the machines the perform this work are very expensive. 

The top of the range printers are very expensive. Not the sort of thing you have in your garage to make a few parts.

 

But if you have the 3D cad file manufacture of the item can be subcontracted out.

Getting the accurate 3D file can have some considerable cost if you cannot do the drafting yourself.

The capability of the printers and the materials they can print is rapidly increasing.

 

At engineering trade shows have talked to the guys from http://www.rapidman.co.nz/3d-printing/

Edited April 30, 2018 by 1939_Buick (see edit history)

[Restorer32]

In some ways 3-D printing is a solution in search of a problem, at least at this point. If there are less expensive ways to make a quality part why 3-D print it? So far I have not seen any printed parts that could not have been made less expensively in other ways. 3-D printing is fascinating and has a great future but it is unlikely you will ever be able to produce serviceable  parts on demand in your garage, at least not economically.

[Restorer32]

We recently had some Packard parts made using the lost wax technique. The rubber molds cost $250 each but then the finished parts were only $65 each. The molds are good for at least 100 uses and the detail was phenomenal. Even internal splines came out not needing any additional work to fit onto their mating parts.

[29hupp]

I needed a horn button for my 29 Hupp.  I found out that our local public library has a very nice 3D printer that anyone can use for the cost of the filament only.  I designed a horn button from measurements I made and pictures off the internet using a free program called Tinkercad.  Cost me 80 cents for my horn button.  

[Gary_Ash]

I've used Shapeways.com and Imaterialise.com to make parts in several plastic materials and also type 420 stainless steel infused with bronze.  The stainless parts were strong enough for static use, e.g. clamps or door handles, but Imaterialise referred me to their industrial division for parts with higher strength and less brittleness for automotive use in dynamic applications which might be subject to impact and shock.  Their laser-sintered 316L stainless steel closely approaches all the mechanical properties of billet stock.  I have not had anything made by the industrial division yet.  Currently, they can print things up to 10x10x11 inches.

Here's the link to the industrial division:  http://www.materialise.com/en/manufacturing/materialise-onsite

Here's the consumer division:  https://i.materialise.com/en

 

Yes, if you want to make more than a few parts, it's probably cheaper to make a pattern in plastic or wood and have a foundry cast multiple parts.  Been there, done that.  However, there are parts that would require a lot of finish machining or things that cannot be cast because of re-entrant surfaces, holes, etc. where 3D printing really is the answer to a maiden's prayer.  Recently, I visited a large, well-equipped facility for prepping international rally cars.  They had a large, expensive 3D printer for carbon fiber that was used for making jigs and fixtures for accurately aligning parts before welding, but it also turned out complete door skins, fenders, and front end skin in carbon fiber - light, strong, flexible.  Not cheap, but really good and just right for the application.  The photo of the Klein bottle opener (not by me) with varying hex-shaped holes is an example of something that would be extremely difficult to make except by 3D printing.

 

Here are some photos of a small part printed in white acrylic that was used to create silicone rubber molds for wax replicas to investment cast some carb linkage arms in silicon bronze which were then slit, drilled, and tapped.  The arms are about 2.25 x 0.5 x .125 inch, plus thicker hub.  Also, there is a photo of the 1.5" long stainless parts directly printed by the consumer/hobby part of Imaterialise.  For 8-10 pieces, it was cheaper and faster to 3D print them than to pay the set-up charges at the foundry and wait for the parts to get cast.  The whole 3D printing industry is moving so fast that it doesn't make sense to buy your own printer unless you just want to play with the technology.

[Restorer32]

It's been a long time since I've seen a Kline bottle or an Escher drawing.