3-D Printers

There was commotion about the ban a while back because someone successfully printed out the parts to a gun, assembled it, and shot it six times before it was destroyed. As for the ban, it didn't get far, and you can still buy yourself a 3D printer (especially in New York). Heck, even if they did ban em, it's not too too hard to build your own

someone successfully printed out the parts to a gun, assembled it, and shot it six times before it was destroyed.

"BULLCR4P" and what caliber was it? black powder? semi or full auto? destroyed it for ethical reasons, or because it didn't exist?

This sounds like Joe Biden or some other liberal 'bull', the kind of 'CR4P' that should P.O. everyone. You're right, it's not to hard to build your own 3d printer but a much quicker and effective weapon is a 'zip gun' in anything from .17 cal. rimfire to 12ga.

You have to look at this in context and understand the details of what actually happened. This story is typical of how something gets blown out of proportion and everyone gets their panties in a bunch due to lack of information. This story comes from a guy who printed the lower receiver of an AR-15 to save some money. Nothing illegal about that because apparently you don't have to file paperwork if you make a homemade receiver. He attached all the other typical steel components of the AR-15 to the receiver made of printed plastic. So of course you can fire it but the receiver will eventually get destroyed due to heat and shock.

So the truth is, nobody created a complete gun from a 3D printer and shot it six times before it was destroyed.

The guy could have just as easily decided to try and make the receiver out of wood...for kicks!

"...man fabricates gun from wood and fires it six times before it was destroyed"

Ban all wood working tools!...fer fawk's sakes...I mean really?

That was my first thought. Especially easy with a rimfire cartridge.

Here is a handy reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm

https://www.google.com/search?q=zip+gun&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=AC8sUYvOOtPOyAGSnoGYBg&ved=0CD8QsAQ&biw=1600&bih=805

There was an old movie where the hero stuck a cartridge in a knot hole and killed the villain who had him trapped. He used a rock and a nail or something as a firing pin. I remembere that from when I was a kid, and saw it again recently.

McGyver didn't use guns and did pretty well.

Or you could be constructive and build a house with a 3D printer:

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2012/08/12/this-giant-3d-printer-can-construct-house-little-20-hours/

I meant just some of the parts to the gun, should've included more details, that's my bad. I forget what the original source is because it happened some time ago, but this has all the same information:

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/3-d-printed-gun-fires-6-shots-then-falls-apart-1C7404226

Answer to your question: Yes.

Operating gear sets can be made.

Hollow objects can be made.

Parts that will withstand modern ammunition pressures, no. Sort of.

Not yet, easily. It is possible, none the less. Wouldn't look like a normal gun.

The 3D printer doesn't have to make something with moving part inside. It would jjust make the parts and the human would assemble the parts.

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And Yes hollow things can be printed. 3d printers can manufacture some items that would be very difficult to manufacture as one piece with most other tech.

If you can model it in 3D then you can print it. It makes no difference to the printer wether it's a single part or a complex assembly.

I think it would make some difference if it were an assembly or just a collection of parts to be assembled.

It would be much more difficult to produce things like sliding surfaces and springs in situ as opposed to separately for later assembly.

I've seem complete, operating gear sets, with carriers, made by stereolithography, 20 years ago.

I printed a complete gearbox fully assembled and functional. No need for assembly. Most professional grade printers use what's called "supports" to fill in the "spaces" in your model. The "space" for example is the clearance between gear teeth, bearings, etc. Some Pro printers can achieve +- .005 accuracy. This "support" material is not the ABS that the rest of the model will be made of. After the printing is completed, you rinse the part and the "support" material is dissolved.

That is really cool. I had no idea.

Have a look at this. Scroll the vid to time code 0:58. That's where interesting assembly starts.

If you're inclined to do so, you can build your own 3D printer for dirt cheap(...like $350 bucks). There's a pile of info online and youtube. Google RepRap and have a look at this and this. The guy in the vid explains it all. A note: you can't print assemblies with this type of rig.

Cheers

That is great. Thank you.

I have followed it a little with interest, but what has kept my interest on other projects is the unavailability to print in metal YET for the personal machines. I really have an affinity for metals.

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MIG processes would be far too sloppy and dirty to be useful in similar set up, there is another option. I think cold wire fed TIG (or maybe plasma welding) using fine wire, small tungsten and low amps, might be able to be adapted.

The definition wouldn't be as good initially, but I'm sure improvement would be made.

Using Stainless or Titanium would probably require greatly reduced speed because of the poor heat transfer. I suspect having the bed actively cooled and using refrigerated shielding gas would help to solidify things quickly, as would using a pulser.

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Anyway, just some ideas I won't be acting on in the near term, but fun to think about.

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Thanks again for sharing that vid.

Metal 3D printing does existing but's very high end not for average Joe. Google "Direct Metal Selective Laser Melting (SLM)". I saw a demo at a trade show last year. The lazer melts together powdered metal particles in layers of 20-100um. The completed part then gets heat treated in an oven. Amazing stuff.

I'm glad you were interested in 3D printing in metals. That is called Direct Metal Laser Sintering or DMLS. There are YouTube videos of that additive manufacturing process as well. The technique uses powdered metals instead of powdered composites, nylons, or polymers -- materials like titanium-aluminide powder. GE Aviation (GE Aerospace Engines), Honda Motor, Boeing, and Airbus use this kind of DMLS with laser sintering machines to make all kinds of actual parts with internal moving parts. Some of the components include engine compressors, turbofan blades, thruster components, etc. The real problem society has with what has become known as 3D Printing is that the TV media is enthralled with the garage-shop tinkerer. In Engineering and Industrial Shop Production what uses the same process as 3D Printing is known as additive manufacturing. Stereolithography (the 20-year old plus process upon which most of these later iterations are based) is at the core, but if you look up additive manufacturing or Google or Wikipedia it, you will find that it has advanced far past what people played with in the 90's (grew up along CPU strengths). The 3D Printers in most use by the general public, which are actually prototyping machines were designed to create mock-ups. The one's used in manufacturing are both prototyping machines and actual production machines. This is a very disruptive technology and innovation in manufacturing along the lines of what the Gutenberg Press did for the creation of books, and it is still driven by American ingenuity. Back to the original posting. Guns have been manufactured this way, and it may actually be used by some reputable gun manufacturers today (like Smith and Wesson). To that I haven't any knowledge. As I stated before though, DHS, ATF and other alphabets of the government are aware of this fact. In spite of this, as many of the cynics have posted -- it doesn't make any sense to ban anything.

Watching this is actually a bit scary. What else can be printed? From what file(s)?

Can a rocket launcher be printed, even for a 1 time use?

This is another brilliant idea!!!

The criminals will be stopped in their tracks.

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

3D printing is new and there is a lot of money to be made getting in on the ground floor of something new. Thus, there are a huge number of sites on 3D printing. Several Open Source and DIY projects exist.

A couple of interesting links:

http://defcad.org/ 3D printing specifically related to gun parts (topic of this thread)

http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/21/a-3-d-pen-that-lets-you-draw-objects-in-the-air/?hpt=hp_t2 current CNN story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQWyhezIze4 3Doodler
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3QWRI29qCc 3Doodler

http://www.3dprinter.net/ generic 3D printers site

http://www.3-d-printers.net/ generic 3D printers site

Define new, please. I went to work for 3D Systems in the early 90's when they introduced StereoLithography (TM) to the world. That was 20 years ago.

The only thing really new about it is the reduced cost of the control systems (such as Arduino on Rep-Raps) and the proliferation of cheap and relatively easy to learn 3D design software.

Hooker

OK. I also worked on a project about 13 years ago where we had something 3D printed.

It is new that prices are low enough that average engineers and upper middle class kids put 3D routers, mills and printers on their Christmas list and expect to get the tool. Before the market made 3D printing an investment, now it is just an expense. The dollar value per machine is lower but with a rapidly expanding market the sales people looking to get rich quick smell a lot more money in the air.

Bob -- I really think it depends on what you wish to do with a 3D Printer. I've been around long enough to remember when people called Apple Computers 'just a toy' that would never amount to much. You are right there are people like Steve Jobs who took the idea engineered by a lot of great staffers at Apple and moved to get rich with their idea as there was a smell of money in the air. But his sales efforts also helped all those early engineers make a lot of money, too. But, EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY, it created first a computer for the rest of us (as everyone copied Apple) and second an awful lot of creativity that disrupted IBM's big iron hold on the entire market. With the 3D Printer most have no clue about how far it has advanced today (like Apple they are looking at it from the lens of an experience over 10 years ago). Additive manufacturing is in its first inning; it has eight or more to play. It is already probably one of the biggest disruptive innovations -- on the level of the Gutenberg press, or the Ford assembly line. One only needs to stop focusing on the present (this iteration is home-user and garage-shop style) and the cost coming down -- to see how this device will revolutionize everything much in the same way those 'toys' for rich kids (the Apple computer) began showing up on more and more desktops became connected through networks, joined the Internet -- then microsized to a mobile smart phone and iPad. Mark my words. 3D Printing will evolve in the same way, and those who embrace it now will be able to add their engineering skill sets to do just about anything that requires a tangible artifact.

I wouldn't try to make a gun barrel by printing, but there are many parts of a gun that are not subject to explosive gasses that can be printed. There are guns now available that are mostly plastic, except for the barrel. The Sig Sauer may be one of them.

Someone has printed the lower receiver for an AR-15. They have run a couple hundred rounds of .22 ammo through it with relatively few issues, if I remember correctly. No major failure, just some issues that will require tuning.

3-D Printing (or additive manufacturing in industrial settings) can produce a hollow object rather easily. It can also produce a product with moving parts inside (not as easy). What you heard, from what I've followed is false 'hype', or what we used to call propaganda, to stir the masses into believing that their Constitutional Rights are at risk. Usually written by lobbyists or PR hacks who have no clue about anything, IMO. If you are into social movements you 'should be' concerned that the TV and movie plots may 'have it right.' That is, that it is possible, and probable, that this is occurring as I write this -- that guns may be being printed somewhere in this world. Governments know this. But, banning the sale of 3D Printers to the general public would not make a dent in potential perpetrators carrying such activities out. What is more likely (now that the 3D Printer is everywhere) is that some form of 'tracking' may eventually become enforced. Back to 3D Printing ... most garage-style machines sold to the general public (even the very expensive ones) are designed for nylon-based polymers, or for poly-plastics. Some also can use powdered carbon, and a few can use powdered metals. Every day there are more materials, composites, and powders being created for use in additive processes. But, the chemistry, material science, and metallurgy required to develop any constancy in outputs usually requires advanced technical knowledge, and also requires machine-to-machine sensing, analytics, and data control by algorithms that in these early machine iterations (the public machines) just is not present. Thus, a perpetrator or a public citizen would need some of these advanced understandings, and would also need m-m capabilities to create more than a single armament, though those kinds of individuals do already exist.

Does this mean that any tool that can be used to fabricate the individual parts needed to assemble a firearm, from whatever suitable material would also be banned i.e. lathes, milling machine, files etc. Unless of course you had a legitimate engineering requirement for that tool. Why stop there, why not just ban the sale of any material that could be used to make a firearm. Would it be easier to restrict the sale of the materials to make the ammunition. And we don't even want to get started on the bows & arrows ban.

Classic knee jerk reaction. Jerk would be the operative word used to describe, whoever suggested the ban.

Yes, we should also ban the Internet. There's too much info online on how to build weaponry and explosives. We should also ban all institutions that teach anything technical. We cannot allow people to be knowledgeable about that sort of thing. They will use that knowledge for evil.

The last two posts show clearly how propaganda in society works to stir the soul in false directions. The cynical humor is precious -- and even funny. But the reality is that it is at most as the one writer said -- a stupid, short-term knee-jerk reaction that only the dumbest would ever believe would happen. And, at least -- a non-issue unworthy of time discussing it in this thread. Nobody is banning anything. So why discuss it here in an engineering discussion group? Certainly there is wisdom coming from the two preceding posts -- but when you mount that intelligence on a propaganda idea based on falsities -- then that just leads more and more into the wrong conclusions. I do hope this does get back to meaningful discussions about 3D printing and additive manufacturing -- as that has real value in this discussion group -- and should be widely thought about here -- as we are on the threshold of a very disruptive innovation that will change everything in production.

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Call me an engineer quick. Someone who thinks and can reason on their own. How in the world does this type of garbage get started. 3D printers can make models of things. But a working gun is way off in the realm of TV land. Even the so called plastic guns have a lot of metal in the high load areas and they are using glass filled materials in the other areas. Not just plain old PVC or such.

The world and web are full of dumbasses! It's too bad they can't be banned from spewing out nonsense.

3D printers can make hollow and/or complex parts by printing with two different materials, one which has a lower melting point or reacts to a solvent differently than the other. This filler material can then be removed using heat or a solvent, leaving the working unit.

All this hype about 3D gun making is just that-hype. It is far easier and less expensive to just make a real gun out of metal with a lathe and milling machine. I can make a fully functioning assault rifle and while I am at it i can make it supressed and full automatic. Full auto is easier because you don't have to make the sear. Anyone with a little brains can do this.

The real danger is if terrorists can "print" a weapon that can pass through airline security. The printing of a gun is not a realistic use of the technology by the general public. The news media loves to report stories like this and anti gun legislators love it too. They use it to further their agenda against firearms to the gullible public.

That "Gennie" is out of the bottle,and will never go back in...

good luck to any institution that tries to ban it.. I recall the Bishop of Rome tried a similar thing with printing press.. Look what that bought us..