Well, looks like the Gen 1 failed after 6 shots.... But it opens up a whole new world on making yourself gun parts as the tech improves..

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futur ... -1C7404226

Add a little better polymer into the whole mix and the Gen 2 or 3 of this could be interesting....... Print pretty much so everything except for your barrel perhaps???

Just issue a tube of Crazy Glue with it.

shinzen wrote:Well, looks like the Gen 1 failed after 6 shots.... But it opens up a whole new world on making yourself gun parts as the tech improves..

If you lower your voice and listen to the silence for the bit, you can almost hear ATF shitting themselves.

3D printing: the dream is that some day you will be able to spend your way out of mechanical incompetence.

I can still make a lower out of aluminum with a drill press and a hacksaw and a file faster than someone can program and print one. If I can spend as much on tooling as a 3D printer costs, I can be set up to make them faster than they can be printed.

3D printing is a powerful technology that can do things that can't be done otherwise, but it sure sucks when people try to use it as an alternative to better, existing technology.

Fukshot wrote:I can still make a lower out of aluminum with a drill press and a hacksaw and a file faster than someone can program and print one. If I can spend as much on tooling as a 3D printer costs, I can be set up to make them faster than they can be printed.

Now that I'd like to see. Not that I doubt you could do it, I'd just like to see the end result.

A 3D printer does cost less than a Bridgeport and tooling, that's for sure.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ... d0f9bb066b

http://www.assaultweb.net/forums/showth ... p?t=133335

Note: I did not build those. I have never built one. Not interested in building one. Just making a point.

80% castings are ~$45 if you can find them. A good set of dies are around $100 the last time I checked.

So waiting for my brother to move his metal shop to southern IL...

Wow. Full drawings at that second link. I could certainly make that in my basement...

Not the prettiest receiver, but I bet it would get the job done.

Ultravox wrote:Wow. Full drawings at that second link. I could certainly make that in my basement...

Not the prettiest receiver, but I bet it would get the job done.

Well you are pretty good at working with wood.

whitey wrote:

Ultravox wrote:Wow. Full drawings at that second link. I could certainly make that in my basement...

Not the prettiest receiver, but I bet it would get the job done.

Well you are pretty good at working with wood.

Is there a wood with the strength needed? I mean, the lower does have to take some abuse, but it doesn't have to contain the explosion...


I want an AR lower in bronze.

We have wood!

http://www.weaponeer.net/forum/forum_po ... PN=2&TPN=2

I bet Ultra could do a good deal better. Maybe start with an epoxy impregnated laminated stock blank?

Walnut is a pretty stout wood, how about Koa wood from Hawaii, not sure how strong that is.

I think that if you are going to use a material other than metal, you need to reinforce the buffer ring. I could see injection molding the lower with some steel reinforcement "brackets" in and around the buffer ring.

Okay, that wooden receiver is amusing. Wood would not be my first (or second) choice for material.

I have a hacksaw, a drill press and a file. Like Fukshot said, I could make the aluminum plate version.

If I bought a crossfeed table for my drill press (about $100) I'd have a pretty crappy mill, but it would sure make getting the holes in the right place easier.

Hell, a bench top mill can be had for $500 or so and then you could really make some nice stuff. CNC it for another couple hundred and you could mill a receiver from a block.

Hmm. Looks like I need to sell more ammo boxes and grips.

My favorite newspaper had a dumb thread on this a couple of days ago. See if you can guess my secret identity there:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archiv ... e-internet

There have been a number of gun threads lately with basic ignorance about guns on display by both the writer and many commentors. I don't understand why many liberals seem to be proud of their ignorance of actual factual facts concerning guns, taking not one minute to look up what they're talking about.

Buck13 wrote:My favorite newspaper had a dumb thread on this a couple of days ago. See if you can guess my secret identity there:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archiv ... e-internet

There have been a number of gun threads lately with basic ignorance about guns on display by both the writer and many commentors. I don't understand why many liberals seem to be proud of their ignorance of actual factual facts concerning guns, taking not one minute to look up what they're talking about.

In our overly zealous mission for equality, we're being ignorant to bring balance from the other side's ignorance. It's the stupidest nice thing we've done to date and should be happily infuriated about it.

Fukshot wrote:We have wood!

Barely. With growth rings that big, that slop must have all the strength of styrofoam. "Pine A.B.O.R.T.I.O.N." is a pretty funny name, though.

inmediasres wrote:

shinzen wrote:Well, looks like the Gen 1 failed after 6 shots.... But it opens up a whole new world on making yourself gun parts as the tech improves..

If you lower your voice and listen to the silence for the bit, you can almost hear ATF shitting themselves.

Indeed- and Fukshot, I agree, would be much simpler to just manufacture one out of aluminum, but the newer 3D printers can actually replicate all the parts necessary to make another one- as a bit of a nerd, it's just interesting to see the possibilities. The Reprap printer can be built for about $500, or you can get one that is ready to print these days for $800.. There are certainly much less expensive ways to get a lower receiver done, but with the advances in tech, it's just something to keep an eye on.

We have a small 3-d printer at work. It can't do this type of thing though. The quality of the parts is on par with 90's era fuse deposition, which was butt ugly. We can crank out dozens of wire harness hold downs, and plastic spring clips, as well as prototype any such part in half a day or less, once the part is set up, and we can make several copies in a single build.

When I was a prototype model maker, I spent some time running stereo-lithography (SLA) and selective laser sintering (SLS) machines. Once you have the 3-d model and it's been converted to the proper file type, setting the build up is a snap (though, we still had to use an old unix box to set up one of the SLA machines we had, as it was older and not geared for the modern, windows based software the others ran off of, and that was a big PITA to set up).

You could just import the model into the software, orient it how you wanted and more or less hit start. That lower could be built with SLS using glass filled nylon, or even a powdered aluminum alloy of some sort with an SLS machine of 2000-2001 vintage. The build would probably take about 10 hours, though maybe less, if you built it from back to front standing upright. Not as much detail per layer for the laser to imprint into the powder that way. I don't know that it would be anymore durable than the 3-d printer one in the article, though. Also, SLS is tricky. While the parts are strong as machined ABS or Delrin, because they are made layer by layer using a carbon laser to melt each layer from powdered plastic, you have to really stay on top of the temperature in the build chamber and within the powder cake itself. Any variance can result in delamination, which will not only throw off the accuracy of your part, but also weaken it, assuming it doesn't ruin the build altogether.

I wonder if 3-d printing a handgun frame might not be an easier challenge with current technology? I think I'd be far more concerned, as a LEO, about someone shitting Glock frames by the truck load than AR lowers.

On the subject of wood, several years ago I worked up a rendering in photoshop of a wood stocked AR. It resembled the Walther 2000 and had a full wood stock with the upper and naked barrel dropping into it. I did zero research on how to do it exactly, it was just a conceptual thing, but I'll post it if I can find it. I kind of liked the look.

Unclemeat wrote:We have a small 3-d printer at work. It can't do this type of thing though. The quality of the parts is on par with 90's era fuse deposition, which was butt ugly. We can crank out dozens of wire harness hold downs, and plastic spring clips, as well as prototype any such part in half a day or less, once the part is set up, and we can make several copies in a single build.

When I was a prototype model maker, I spent some time running stereo-lithography (SLA) and selective laser sintering (SLS) machines. Once you have the 3-d model and it's been converted to the proper file type, setting the build up is a snap (though, we still had to use an old unix box to set up one of the SLA machines we had, as it was older and not geared for the modern, windows based software the others ran off of, and that was a big PITA to set up).

You could just import the model into the software, orient it how you wanted and more or less hit start. That lower could be built with SLS using glass filled nylon, or even a powdered aluminum alloy of some sort with an SLS machine of 2000-2001 vintage. The build would probably take about 10 hours, though maybe less, if you built it from back to front standing upright. Not as much detail per layer for the laser to imprint into the powder that way. I don't know that it would be anymore durable than the 3-d printer one in the article, though. Also, SLS is tricky. While the parts are strong as machined ABS or Delrin, because they are made layer by layer using a carbon laser to melt each layer from powdered plastic, you have to really stay on top of the temperature in the build chamber and within the powder cake itself. Any variance can result in delamination, which will not only throw off the accuracy of your part, but also weaken it, assuming it doesn't ruin the build altogether.

I wonder if 3-d printing a handgun frame might not be an easier challenge with current technology? I think I'd be far more concerned, as a LEO, about someone shitting Glock frames by the truck load than AR lowers.

On the subject of wood, several years ago I worked up a rendering in photoshop of a wood stocked AR. It resembled the Walther 2000 and had a full wood stock with the upper and naked barrel dropping into it. I did zero research on how to do it exactly, it was just a conceptual thing, but I'll post it if I can find it. I kind of liked the look.

Interesting, I didn't even know a machine like that existed to be honest. Great point on the LEO concerns, having glock lowers all over the place for next to nothing could definitely be problematic, but I have to admit, i think I'd like to have one!

I was in Seoul in 98 installing a scanner for one like that (SLS machine was built in Texas) and they were doing all sorts of metal - even had steel based powders for it. The whole area went several directions - one to cheap 3d printers. Another to much more expensive 3d printers using really durable resins and increasingly larger tanks to make some relly huge parts. The SLS stuff kind of went quiet but I'd bet there's some high dollar equipment around with hot lasers that don't need much (or any) binding agent to make a green part. And by now all you need is a 'watertight' 3d model - just toss it at the software and it's ready.

Yeah. DTM made the SLS machines and they were out of Texas. 3D systems bought them out in '02. The tech is still there, but it doesn't seem to be marketed as much as stereo lithography (3D system's bread and butter).

I know that Boeing had a factory floor full of SLS machines cranking out hundreds of copies per build, per machine of certain parts using some powdered alloy in the late 90's and early aughts.