stereolithography

We used SLA parts all the time to PROTOTYPE form and fit before committing to injection mold or cast tooling. None of our SLA parts had any significant structural strength. Testing of latches, snaps, loads, and impact resistance had to wait for the ACTUAL tooled part. Suggest you start here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography

It would be an excellent technique for reproducing parts for antique machinery---But----It is still very expensive. I know a fellow that makes small parts for old cars. He generates the 3d Drawing, produces the part, uses it as a blank for silicon rubber mold casts a wax part and sand casts the part from Pot Metal or casts Epoxy or Acrylic. Here is the catch. His brother owns the SLA Machine. I think this would be expensive if you were to have to pay for the service.

Jay Leno restores antique/cars for a hobby. To get around the problem of so many parts being unavailable, he scans a part with a DMM then makes a solid model in a computer. He either completes the model (if it has rust or other damage) or reverses it (if he has a right hand part but not the matching left hand part, for example) then uses a stereolithography machine to produce a prototype. He has a foundry use that to make a mold and cast a new part.

Actually, I don't know how much of this he does himself, but I saw an article about him, and he does have the equipment.

I spent 3 years with 3D Systems as a sales/application engineer. In my experience, you can SLA parts mainly for fit, form, and function tests but not usually for real use. The SLA parts are also used for mold building, and some resins are designed to burn off in lost wax style casting. I've seen SLA parts used for making rubber molds, plaster molds, spray metallizing, sand molds and dozens of applications from aerospace to the jewelry industry.

Caveat - It's been 20 years (yikes, that long?) since I worked for them. The plastic resin technology has changed considerably in that time so I'm undoubtedly out of date.

You can find most every thing you need to know on the 3D Systems website:

3D Systems

There are also other rapid prototyping systems around you might want to google. None of them develop metal parts as far as I know.

Hooker

Very few SLA techniques can make a metal part. and even then the part is usually made from a low melting point alloy like zinc or bismuth or tin because it usually uses laser sintering to fuse the metal powder. The resulting part is not very dense or strong, it is also usually very porous. and machines that can do that are far more expensive than your typical SLA machine. Your best bet is using SLA to make wax model molds, dip them in ceramic/porcelain and fire them and then cast them from the metal you want them made from.

Your other possibility is subtractive solid prototyping which means essentially a small multi-axis CNC milling machine to machine the parts from solid metal. you can make finished parts out of just about any metal you want, but you have for all intents and purposes bought a miniature machine shop tool.

And there are limits on how big the part can be no matter which process you choose.

When I left 3D Systems (about 4 years back), we were working on an A6 tool steel powder for their SLS machines. The goal was to be able to make parts that could be used for more than just mock ups. You might contact the company and see if they have any SLS materials that could be used to make working parts.

www.3dsystems.com

By the time you jump thru all the hoops you could make a mold or a die in be pumping out part if you have an old part to measure from

Not necessarily. We (when I was at 3D Systems) once got a call from Proctor & Gamble to come in and tell them about SLA. My sales guy made an appointment for 48 hours later.

I ran out and bought a thingie of Sure deodorant, modeled it in about 20 minutes with one obvious change, and let the system build it overnight. I built the body, cap and rotating advance mechanism as three separate pieces in one build session on the machine. Then I finished and painted the pieces in the appropriate colors, steamed the label off the original and pasted it on the SLA part. When we walked in the next day and handed it to the marketing people they were confused and asked why we brought a container of their own.

I told them to pull the cap off (I left it unfinished inside) and explained that I had made a new concept model for them in less than 24 actual hours with about 3 or 4 man hours of work. They were astonished.

Rapid prototyping is highly beneficial for marketing review and for concept design Especially free form and aerodynamic surfaces that are hard to measure and manually replicate.

You would normally be hard pressed to make a mold and cast and finish the part in that time frame, especially when you realize that the rapid prototyping systems usually run unattended.

Hooker

yes your right. there are so many stamping plants in need of work they would be willing.