[Eric LeClair]

Big fan of the 2nd Amendment but this seems kind of ummm strange . . .

Apparently, you can now 3d print your own weapons.

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mhl45ediih/the-liberator/

You can openly download these designs as well.

https://pinshape.com/items/24145-3d-printed-super-gun

Has anyone heard of this or let alone tried it?

Great for making replica's of ancient swords and armoury but not sure if I'll go this far.

[Glen A Cleeton]

Don't confuse the technology with what sword parts are being cast from models printed by the technology. Once the model has been created, it then needs to be cast in metal Nobody is spitting out an entire sword by printing one. Parts are being assembled on blades.

You can find some parts at Kult of Athena.

Cheers

GC

[Mikko Kuusirati]

Neither of those "guns" is even as functional as the most primitive gun you could put together in your backyard out of some pipes, nails and rubber bands - the "Liberator" was sort of functional as a design, as I understand it, as opposed to that other barely gun-shaped object, but even it could not be made with any consumer grade printer currently on the market or even on the horizon, it requires industrial equipment just like conventional firearms, and the project hasn't gone anywhere in years. These are barely prototypes, if that.

We're no closer to home made firearms than we've been at any point in the last five hundred years. It's far easier to make a simple gun at home out of spare parts with very common tools, and it will be far more functional and reliable than these things.

PS. Note the broken trigger on that Liberator...

[Simon McKenna]

Its inevitable that somebody will have a go at making swords by additive layer manufacture at some point since it could certainly recreate sword geometry from a CAD model but, as Mikko says, it would take industrial scale equipment which is currently very expensive (c. £0.5 - £0.75m here in the UK right now and certainly a lot more expensive than the CNC machine tools used for stock removal methods) and you'd probably still only be able to make quite small blades as the working volumes are not huge on most machines.

There's also the issue of structural integrity of the product - I'm not sure whether a conventional heat-treating process would be sufficient for a part made this way.

Probably not something we're going to see until the technology is a lot more mature.

Simon

[Andrew Gill]

A slight digression/rant on 3D printing:

3D printing has been hyped to the point where it is now being suggested a method for making all sorts of improbable things which it was never suited to, nor economically viable for. It is very much slower and more expensive than nearly all mass-production techniques commonly used today (especially injection moulding), so it is unlikely to ever be used to manufacture common household appliances, and it only really comes into its own when you are trying to make very small numbers of geometrically complex objects with a reasonable degree of precision (eg. prosthetic limbs, or masters for casting hightly detailed sword fittings or sculptural works of art), that would previously have required hand-working. On top of this, home 3D printers generally use low-melting point thermoplastics - probably the worst material imaginable for trying to make something that has to contain an explosion. As already mentioned by others, there are, unfortunately, much easier ways of making ersatz firearms (these are a major problem in my country; and the criminals using them are or were neither very smart nor wealthy and certainly didn't have or need 3D printers to make them), so anyone attempting to use 3D printing is either doing an academic exercise (i.e. trying to see what is possible, though not necessarily advisable), or demonstrating a lack of practical thinking which I find disturbing in someone trying to design a firearm.

Now, on a subject possibly more relevant to to this forum, there is a rapid-prototyping technique called selective laser sintering, where a laser beam is used to weld fine metal powder together in the shape of the object desired - it is somewhat like 3D printing in metal, but even more slow and expensive. A few years back, I spoke to an engineer from a company offering this as a service (particularly for blades for prototype fans and turbines) at a conference - he told me that the (then) newest processes could produce steel objects with less than 2% porosity (i.e. nearly perfectly solid) that could be hardened to 53 on the Rockwell C scale (i.e sword blade hardness). Of course, it can be done in other metals with lower melting point as well for the fittings. That might be a viable method of producing high-accuracy replicas of actual swords and daggers that have been 3D-scanned - though this would probably very much too expensive for the average collector, as Simon points out. However, it may be useful for a museum with deep pockets (if such a thing exists) if they want an exact replica of an antique weapon.

[Simon McKenna]

Good rant Andrew, and quite right.

Laser sintering was what I was referring to, though there is also an e-beam technology available but the principle is much the same, just a different type of energy source. Your idea of making 'copies' of original pieces (for museums) is one I've toyed with as I have access to technology for accurate 3-D scanning and can create 3D CAD models from this data, though even that has its issues when applying it to valuable and fragile artefacts.

I think it would be probably still be too expensive and limited to only special cases as most museums don't have the deepest pockets, or perhaps something that would interest private collectors, who sometimes do have very deep pockets.

I don't think Albion will be selling their CNC machines any time soon!

[Eric LeClair]

Wow . . . Well first thanks for the awesome reply you guys. Yeah I think 3d printing seems a little 'out of touch' for the average guy such as myself but love to 'print' something sooner or later. There is a printer I came across a while ago in our local college so let's see. Great info nonetheless. Thx a lot!

[E Stafford]

regarding the home made "firearm" and 3d printed "firearm", in honesty, they're just pipe bombs. Yes, you can get the designs on the dark web, but you hope they work. You're holding onto it if it doesn't.

[Graham Shearlaw]

[Jean Thibodeau]

We are still a long way away from having a Star trek like replicator where you could order a Colt 1911 .45 ACP with ivory grips or a Mauser Broom handle C96 in 9mm luger ...... And the whole thing fully assembled with springs, lubricated and already loaded... ,

[Tim Lison]

Here's a topic over on Bladesmith's Forum about a replica of the Snartemo sword made using a 3d printed (in wax) grip that was then cast in bronze. Obviously a gorgeous replica of an ancient sword made using the most modern technique... Interesting to see the application of 3d printing in our hobby.

http://www.bladesmithsforum.com/index.php?sho...hl=printed

[Eric LeClair]