4 ms·

This is not 'printing a gun', But it (kind of) is, specifically with regards to US law. I mean, that's the point. There is a huge market for AR-15 upgrade pa

This is not 'printing a gun', But it (kind of) is, specifically with regards to US law. I mean, that's the point. There is a huge market for AR-15 upgrade parts, and everything else can be acquired easily with no regulation. And yes, this could be made at home with old technology, but it requires a fair amount of dedication and skill. Downloading a file and clicking 'print' is a significantly different process.

0x12 15y ago
> But it requires a fair amount of dedication and skill To specifically address that point, you could use a 5 axis machining center and a standardized control sequence ('G-codes') to do the exact same thing. I think the bigger difference is the amount of funds that needs to be put on the table for the machine itself. Once you have the rig set up for a part the major operations are mounting the blank, hitting 'start' and removing the finished part (assuming it can be made in one pass).
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  you could use a 5 axis machining center That's extremely expensive equipment that you're not going to have at home without a lot of dedication and investment. You could always send something off to eMachineShop.com, but that's still not really comparable to the not-so-distant future where we'll all have easy access to local 3D printers.
  - 0x12 15y ago
    Fine, so cast it using the lost wax method and clean it up. There are literally a hundred different ways in which you could make this part for pennies and some of those methods would be much more rapid and much cheaper than 3D printing.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      Are you seriously trying to suggest that carving the part plug, building a box, acquiring appropriate sand, packing the part into the sand, acquiring and melting metal, pouring said metal, then finishing the part's surface is anything like the ease of downloading, printing, and waiting? Yes, building a 3D printer is an investment now. But cheap, common 3D printers are going to become a reality, and soon.
  - commandar 15y ago
    >That's extremely expensive equipment that you're not going to have at home without a lot of dedication and investment. You can stamp AK receivers with little more than a hydraulic shop press and a simple jig, followed by either riveting or welding things in place. That's totally within the realm of many home workshops, and people have been doing so for years.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      That is still wildly beyond the level of effort which will be required to do a 3D print job in only a few years.
      - commandar 15y ago
        Perhaps so, but the point is that manufacturing receivers is already fairly trivial compared to the rest of a firearm since it's a low stress part, and that this is already well-covered legal ground. Even if 3D printing reaches the ubiquity of everyone having the equipment at home, 3D printers will not be capable of producing full, functional firearms.
        georgieporgie 15y ago
        Perhaps so, but the point is that manufacturing receivers is already fairly trivial compared to the rest of a firearm since it's a low stress part I still don't really agree with that. A stamping machine isn't particularly easier to come by than a good boring machine, in my opinion. The whole process of creating a rifle isn't terribly high-tech, as demonstrated by the vast number of cheap AK-variants flooding the world. It is still, however, beyond the skill and motivation of most people. Even if 3D printing reaches the ubiquity of everyone having the equipment at home, 3D printers will not be capable of producing full, functional firearms. I completely disagree with that. Given sufficient time, it seems inevitable that we will have 3D printer medium capable of containing the high pressure of even a rifle.
        0x12 15y ago

0x12 15y ago

> But it requires a fair amount of dedication and skill To specifically address that point, you could use a 5 axis machining center and a standardized control sequence ('G-codes') to do the exact same thing. I think the bigger difference is the amount of funds that needs to be put on the table for the machine itself. Once you have the rig set up for a part the major operations are mounting the blank, hitting 'start' and removing the finished part (assuming it can be made in one pass).

georgieporgie 15y ago
you could use a 5 axis machining center That's extremely expensive equipment that you're not going to have at home without a lot of dedication and investment. You could always send something off to eMachineShop.com, but that's still not really comparable to the not-so-distant future where we'll all have easy access to local 3D printers.
- 0x12 15y ago
  Fine, so cast it using the lost wax method and clean it up. There are literally a hundred different ways in which you could make this part for pennies and some of those methods would be much more rapid and much cheaper than 3D printing.
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    Are you seriously trying to suggest that carving the part plug, building a box, acquiring appropriate sand, packing the part into the sand, acquiring and melting metal, pouring said metal, then finishing the part's surface is anything like the ease of downloading, printing, and waiting? Yes, building a 3D printer is an investment now. But cheap, common 3D printers are going to become a reality, and soon.
- commandar 15y ago
  >That's extremely expensive equipment that you're not going to have at home without a lot of dedication and investment. You can stamp AK receivers with little more than a hydraulic shop press and a simple jig, followed by either riveting or welding things in place. That's totally within the realm of many home workshops, and people have been doing so for years.
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    That is still wildly beyond the level of effort which will be required to do a 3D print job in only a few years.
    - commandar 15y ago
      Perhaps so, but the point is that manufacturing receivers is already fairly trivial compared to the rest of a firearm since it's a low stress part, and that this is already well-covered legal ground. Even if 3D printing reaches the ubiquity of everyone having the equipment at home, 3D printers will not be capable of producing full, functional firearms.
      - georgieporgie 15y ago
        Perhaps so, but the point is that manufacturing receivers is already fairly trivial compared to the rest of a firearm since it's a low stress part I still don't really agree with that. A stamping machine isn't particularly easier to come by than a good boring machine, in my opinion. The whole process of creating a rifle isn't terribly high-tech, as demonstrated by the vast number of cheap AK-variants flooding the world. It is still, however, beyond the skill and motivation of most people. Even if 3D printing reaches the ubiquity of everyone having the equipment at home, 3D printers will not be capable of producing full, functional firearms. I completely disagree with that. Given sufficient time, it seems inevitable that we will have 3D printer medium capable of containing the high pressure of even a rifle.
        0x12 15y ago