Topical TV

 

1. Awhile back, I saw a special which showed how comedian Jeff Dunham made his latest dummy (Achmed Junior) using a CAD program and a plastics printer. Thing took hours to print the head, but it was almost ready to be painted and start talking when he was done - just need the eyes and speaking mechanism.

   Soon, there will be no need to go shopping - you’ll just print what you want. Not sure how they’re going to handle biological items like food - but eventually Geeks will be able to print real girl friends!

   Posted by jackal40       01/05/2013  at  07:17 AM  



2. That,s funny because my friend has a cnc mill in his garage for hotrod work and we use 4150 on a rare occasion for piston pins and such but your right that its way more trouble than its worth to invest the time for a damn gun.

   Posted by Rich K       01/05/2013  at  09:41 AM  



3. 3D printers are getting cheaper all the time. I’ve even seen some home-built versions. You just need the parts from a couple of old scanners and a microcontroller board like the Arduino. I’ve not seen one of those do the metal sintering process though… mostly they use melting plastic.
   I saw a youtube vid of one of those printers printing a crescent wrench prototype, complete with moving parts. Not practical, but cool.

   Posted by JimS       01/05/2013  at  01:46 PM  



4. Exactly - they can make you a parts prototype, but not the real thing.

   Posted by Drew458       01/05/2013  at  03:35 PM  



5. Well, I imagine for some products, like those made from plastics, you could produce the real thing from a 3d printer.

   Posted by JimS       01/05/2013  at  05:33 PM  



6. I would use a 3D printer to make a model as in ‘lost wax’ casting. The process is 1) print a wax or plastic model with sprues added 2) Dip the model in a ceramic slurry, let dry, dip, let dry, repeat until a ceramic shell has been created around the wax. 3) Fire the mould in a kiln at high temperature (around 1600C) the mould is positioned so that the wax or plastic will drain out the bottom sprue early in the firing process 4) With the mould still hot, pour molten steel in through the top sprue and let cool. 5) Chip off ceramic from steel casting, cut off sprues, finish machine and heat treat.

   Ruger firearms have been using this technique to make receivers and internal parts since the 1960s. This reduced the need for extensive machining which made Ruger’s guns less expensive to build without reducing quality.

   Consider this. The Pennsylvania rifles used by minutemen during the American Revolution were all hand-made including the rifling. With a credit card and a phone you can have better machinery and better steel than Samuel Colt or John Moses Browning had delivered to your door. The only hard part of building a gun is the rifling and there are several youtube videos showing how to build them.

   Posted by Al_in_Ottawa       01/05/2013  at  10:34 PM  

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