Staples Now Selling 3-D Printers...

[Rooftop]

Quite a lot of toys are being made with them actually.  We had some warhammer type figures to look at. 

Love the kinder idea... you could print the yellow egg around it! 

[Rupert]

melt the wax away and end up with the ability to be able to cast something of amazing detail.

Lost wax process.  They have been making turbine blades (jet engines) that way for years, so the methods are well understood.

I had missed that as the obvious use.  Thanks  

Do you think Plaster of Paris will be the other tool? Rubber moulds for photocopying.

[rcjordan]

There are 2 related products working their way through the maker channels that will kick this market into hyper-drive; [1] machines to DIY recycle trash plastics into extruded filament and [2] cheap 3-d scanners that will do the cad/cam with the push of a button.  The scanners are supposedly already being marketed.  I'm waiting for the extruder before I jump in. 

[Rupert]

Wow... so the raw material is already in the home... how cool is that. 

For the Dinner party: I want some fancy cocktail glasses... recycle to old ones love, and print off some of these  


The conversations are going to be different:

Can you finish your coke, so I can make a coat hanger please?

[grnidone]

>The point that will probably be of more interest to people here though is that all the money will be in materials.

Of course.  Just like print cartridges...

[rcjordan]

>already in the home
>cartridges

Yeah, the profit is in the extruded filament ...the Gillette model.  There are DIY machines out there to convert bulk ABS pellets to filament and cut your materials cost by 80% but I want to process scrap --hdpe, in particular, is plentiful.

While I wait for the above, the print dimensions of the printers keep growing.