If you have not heard of 3D printing yet, crawl out the hole you've been hiding in and pull up a stool.
In a nutshell, you can print in various types of resin materials. Much like your inkjet printers of old. Only now it is come off that flat page and into the real world.
From Wiki:
Additive manufacturing or 3D printing[1] is a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model.link
So yeah, it's like freakin' Star Trek replicator thing!
This started like most things, with a question. Where might I find the track tensioner for my M4A3e8 Sherman tank seeing how it is prominently displayed on the side of the tank I am building. Everyone's pal Saúl García pointed me to the website http://www.shapeways.com/ where they have the part, 6 of them for just 10.99.
Here's how it works. You have a 3d drawing you want printed out (the engineers at our plant call it a prototype printer) but you can't afford one of the new 3d printers(yet). You upload your drawing to Shapeways and they print it for you. Now if you really like your part and you want to share it, you can setup a store on Shapeways and sell your parts to the public. This is what Mike Canaday of MMC Designs has done. Mike Canaday has a warehouse full of unique Sherman parts listed at Shapeways. I'm sure we can get the full story on Mikes motivation after this look-see is over.
I evaluated the shipping and risk and figured for $17.49, I'd like to see how this works. I placed my order on the 20th of July, which was a weekend. Got immediate email confirmation that the order has been received. Monday the 22nd of July, I got email from Shapeways at about 3:00P:
I must say, I am impressed with the level of detail from the first look.
There is absolutely no clean up in the likes of which we are use to. No resin pour slabs or sprue gates to clean up. Only clean up that's needed that I see is some of the suspension material that is used in the printing process. I used my airbrush with the pressure turned up a bit to blow out the one on the right, the others still have some material stuck. Check out the gap between the screw gear and the jack housing!
We get 6 of these tensioning fixtures. Enough to use on 3 Shermans as I assume they were equipped with 2 each. What's neat to me, these parts are not copies of each other, they come in two positions on the screw jack. One wide open and the other close to completely closed. Adds a bit of variety I think.
Look down in there, can you see the detail on the screw gear? I'm sure it will show up better after being primed.
Saúl tells me not to clean it with any soft of chemical, I'm not asking him how he knows, just taking his word for it. I'm looking for suggestions on what to prime it with and will share with you all as soon as I find out.
But for me, the options here is boundless. If you can draw in a CAD program you can now have a part custom made for you and in your hand in less than a week. Pretty cool times we live in huh?
Shapeways, I give a enthusiastic thumbs up and thank you Mike Canaday for filling a void on the Sherman front!
In a nutshell, you can print in various types of resin materials. Much like your inkjet printers of old. Only now it is come off that flat page and into the real world.
From Wiki:
Additive manufacturing or 3D printing[1] is a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model.link
So yeah, it's like freakin' Star Trek replicator thing!
This started like most things, with a question. Where might I find the track tensioner for my M4A3e8 Sherman tank seeing how it is prominently displayed on the side of the tank I am building. Everyone's pal Saúl García pointed me to the website http://www.shapeways.com/ where they have the part, 6 of them for just 10.99.
Here's how it works. You have a 3d drawing you want printed out (the engineers at our plant call it a prototype printer) but you can't afford one of the new 3d printers(yet). You upload your drawing to Shapeways and they print it for you. Now if you really like your part and you want to share it, you can setup a store on Shapeways and sell your parts to the public. This is what Mike Canaday of MMC Designs has done. Mike Canaday has a warehouse full of unique Sherman parts listed at Shapeways. I'm sure we can get the full story on Mikes motivation after this look-see is over.
I evaluated the shipping and risk and figured for $17.49, I'd like to see how this works. I placed my order on the 20th of July, which was a weekend. Got immediate email confirmation that the order has been received. Monday the 22nd of July, I got email from Shapeways at about 3:00P:
Not my order has been printed, the PART has been printed. Part arrived at my mail box today and lucky me, I had an dentist appointment so I got out of work early to pick it up and take a look.
I must say, I am impressed with the level of detail from the first look.
There is absolutely no clean up in the likes of which we are use to. No resin pour slabs or sprue gates to clean up. Only clean up that's needed that I see is some of the suspension material that is used in the printing process. I used my airbrush with the pressure turned up a bit to blow out the one on the right, the others still have some material stuck. Check out the gap between the screw gear and the jack housing!
We get 6 of these tensioning fixtures. Enough to use on 3 Shermans as I assume they were equipped with 2 each. What's neat to me, these parts are not copies of each other, they come in two positions on the screw jack. One wide open and the other close to completely closed. Adds a bit of variety I think.
Look down in there, can you see the detail on the screw gear? I'm sure it will show up better after being primed.
Saúl tells me not to clean it with any soft of chemical, I'm not asking him how he knows, just taking his word for it. I'm looking for suggestions on what to prime it with and will share with you all as soon as I find out.
But for me, the options here is boundless. If you can draw in a CAD program you can now have a part custom made for you and in your hand in less than a week. Pretty cool times we live in huh?
Shapeways, I give a enthusiastic thumbs up and thank you Mike Canaday for filling a void on the Sherman front!
