Finally back to work at the school after summer gig with the gov't. As such I am ready to get back to work on the projects in the shop... Over the summer the shop acquired a 3D printer and digitizer..freaking amazing tools. Have already printing a handful of tools and gadgets for the shop. Anybody have any thoughts or ideas of how to use to this hi-tech stuff as it relates to working on our trad. projects? One of my first thoughts was, break a dash knob or something similar...digitize the old one - print a new one, not the same as an original but might get you by until a new one is found?? Any thoughts, ideas...? Thanks-
If you put a value on your time, It's been my experience that 3d printed parts need quite a bit of finish work before they look "good". Aside from novelty stuff, like goofy statues to make your buddies laugh(garden gnome with a dick), I think that they're good for prototyping and proof of concept before money is spent on machining or molding real parts. I'm sitting 6' from one as I type.
What about shifters? I bet you can make some bitchin' looking, yet simple, shifters... change one out every month... lol Depending on what your into... Especially if you can do multiple colors, I don't know enough about them though... My buddy talks about this printer called The Cube, but metal is more fun to play with than plastic... to me...
It all depends on what type of plastic you are using and the type of 3D printer. I am an industrial design student so when we have stuff done for school there are some types of plastic/printers that come out looking like a bunch of strings stuck together. The more high end and expensive stuff can come out really nice. I have often pondered about making car parts at school as well. I have thought a lot about shift knobs, however, we can do casting at school so I would probably go that rout instead. I'm interested to see some people's responce because I have been thinking a lot about this recently as well.
3D printers would be great for making mold positives for cast parts. That's what I want one for. Print it, bodywork it, make a mold from it, pour it, repeat steps 3 & 4 as many times as desired.
I have an Industrial Design degree. I currently do design work, but was a Model Maker/Machinist for 10 years. In that time my definition of a finished part got pretty particular. Our finished stuff often looked better than production parts. Don't get me wrong, 3D printers are awesome, they just need finish work before they look like a production part. We used to bill out our F/W at $70 an hour at the model shop and that effects how I view printed parts that have a cosmetic use.
How about those cool old license plate frames that are so hard to find. I'd buy a pair if they did'nt look like they came from Pep Boys?
Glad to see you back Dan! I actually have some designs that might make for a good project for the kids, drop me a line. Actually was wondering about you guys the other day.
I was also thinking this would be a good way to create plugs for casting...for example print a finned 3 gauge panel and once all the tweaks are done use it make a mold and cast from?? Licence plate frames, club plaques, shift knobs (all kind of knobs really) could be prototyped with the printer and cast... Please keep the ideas coming...
I WAS pretty good with it back when I did design with ProE for a living, so that's probably why I find it so appealing.
You will need to work with setback but I can help you with that. I made a plug for a gas peddle when I had access to a 3D printer but the printer wasn't big enough so we had to scale it down. I probably still have the file I'll see if I can find an image of it. I don't have a lot on this new computer and my old tower is just sitting without a monitor or key board. LOL Nope no luck I'll have to try and snag a pic later.
I told the chrome shop I used to work for, he should get one, with a good 3D scanner and a big ol' server to store data on. Every die cast piece that came in for plating, gets scanned into the system, then, whenever someone needs that part, print it off and have it air-set-sand cast.
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