But made from a super-secret powder. It takes time to harden and mimic the real thread. Just hang on.
Absolutely real, and not limited to polymers. In my business, we’re getting into making product parts this way, much more quickly and cheaply than the conventional casting/forging then exotic-machining processes, and without the alloy element segregation problems you can see with castings that would reduce some key material properties. It’s called “Direct Metal Laser Sintering” - a layer of powder is sintered with a laser, like you see here (just short of melting it), and the part is built up layer by layer. The result can have a very fine finish to it, too, not like the stair-stepped surface you get with stereolithography, or castings made directly from them without secondary finishing.
IOW, yes, it’s real and way cool. 
That’s not a crescent wrench, it’s an adjustable spanner. Pretending like I know anything about tools.
I saw a primitive 3D printer at an Expo five or so years ago. It was very crude, but pretty cool.
And then there’s this.
Can anyone answer with authority about the tensile strength of these replicated items? If the crescent wrench in the video was subjected to the same stresses a steel wrench were subjected to, would it pass muster? Is the finished “hardened powder” product more brittle than the original?
There are two web sites that are doing on-demand 3d printing. I made some comments in the other thread, but fyi
Here is shapeways materials page: http://www.shapeways.com/materials/ I notice that the Alumide sample has a ring through it: http://www.shapeways.com/model/132813/alumide_sample.html?gid=mg
And here is ponoko’s materials page: Online Custom Laser Cutting Service - Used By Apple - FREE Sample
They both have support communities, I’m sure you could ask your questions there as well.
I, too, have now seen the future. My mind is blown.
It’s okay, I can do good twickster impression.
Similar threads merged.
Wow. Those printers really *are *everywhere!
Could you print a 3D printer on one of these things?
(Kind of reminds me of the great idea I had when I was a kid - there was a photocopier in the library and I remember thinking, hey, if you were ever short of paper you could just take one blank sheet of paper and copy it!)
For some reason, a client of mine sent me this link this morning.
The annoying part is that they cut out the many hours needed to actually make the piece.
This is the Holy Grail of the fabricator movement: to build a fabricator that can make another fabricator. Considering the wide variety of types of materials needed, this may be a while, though they may be able to slide by by defining complex items such as integrated circuits, for example, as ‘raw materials’.
The teaching hospital in Maastricht (Netherlands) uses this technique to scan tissues inside a human body, for instance a persons skull suffering from a deformity. Then they print the skull and study it and practice on it before they operate on the actual person.
Medication is also printed for better application..
I want to come up with idea’s to plan a little exhibition on 3D printing here in my hometown.
In the TED link I posted earlier about 9 minutes into it the speaker was discussing the concept of having a full body printer over a hospital bed to put down layers of cells directly onto a wound. I have no idea how long that would be before it was realistic and through with clinical trials, but it is a neat idea.
Neil should switch to decaf.
All TED talks have a time limit, so it tends to compel speakers to talk rapidly.
I SO want a 3d print of one of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests.
You can print in stainless steel now. This site offers it for $10/cm^3: Steel 3D Printing Material Information - Shapeways
If you want some serious metal fabrication check out this 5-axis milling machine. Far different than a 3-D printer to be sure but still cool as hell and can produce some remarkably complex and cool products in one go.
Man, I want some of this stuff like the thorn dice set and companion cube d6 just to improve my nerd cred. They offer so many materials, it’s so hard to pick!
Randall must read the dope: