3D printing is not a meme, friend. It is the companion piece to your CNC mill, and your best friend for printing all of the things you can't or shouldn't machine, like grips, stocks, accessories, magazines, snapcaps and dummy rounds, foregrips, spacers, buffer blocks, et al.
Printing a gun comprised of mostly 3d printed parts is a meme, sure, but don't discount the utility of having a machine that can make literally any plastic object you could dream up.
Go get you some FOSSCAD packs and at minimum, a cheap cartesian or mid-high quality delta printer. You will not be disappointed.
Jonathan Hughes
Are there any good metal 3D printers?
As far as I know the procedure for most 3D printing of parts is: 1. Print 3d structure out of foam 2. Encase foam in plaster or other molding material 3. Let plaster dry 4. Pour petrosol or some other solvent in that dissolves and washes out the foam 5. Pour molten metal into the plaster mold, usually aluminum 6. Let it cool, crack the mold, remove it with a sand/water sprayer 7. Use milling and other techniques to shape it better, because molding is pretty rough, and requires extra unneeded parts for structural stabilization 8. Deburr it 9. Anneal it
Which is a pretty complex procedure.
Mason Foster
Modern FDM printers can print with metal-PLA filaments, that are essentially plastics with heavy a heavy admixture of fine metal shavings. You can print your part, kiln fire it, the plastic evaporates, and you get a (somewhat) solid metal object that way, but that's really not the point.
The point is, if you have both a mill and a printer, you can make complete guns, making trips into town only for things like ammo and screws. Everything a mill can't make, a printer should be able to, and vice-versa.
That, and you're not just limited by a couple different types of plastic anymore. I've personally printed with carbon composite, wood, a super strong new plastic known as Alloy 910, which you could safely print AR lowers out of, various rubbers, etc.
Like I said before, printing gun parts that should be made of metal is a waste of your time, unless you want to get the DEFCAD 80% jig and dummy lower, so you can practice on a piece before using the real one. Printed lowers work fine if your machine is calibrated, and I know of a solid handful of people who have put hundreds of rounds through them, but beyond that, don't do it. Use the printer for all of the extant plastics on your gun.
Adrian Hernandez
The only thing that a prototyping machine can do that a mill can't is internal geometry. Everything else is a matter of how much time you want to spend on fixtures and tooling.
Second, if you wanted to set up a rudimentary machine shop, you'd need a drill press and a lathe, not a mill. Plus the usual collection of cutting tools, drills, taps, dies, files, saws, and so forth. You can do a surprising amount of milling jobs on the lathe, either by clamping the workpiece to the faceplate or to a vice on the cross slide.
Also, machinable wax is a thing. The reason we machine things from forgings and castings is to save machine time and tool wear. Except wax cuts like it's not there, so you can rough out the shape of your part, use it as a pattern for casting, then go back and machine only the features that require a mechanical fit with other parts. You can even reuse the wax if you care enough to gather the chips and remelt them.
Yes, but 3D Printing is easy as fuck compared to having a full-stop machine shop, and when it comes to plastic parts, I'd much rather save valuable time
Bear in mind that I'm not suggesting making casting moulds out of plastic for metal parts, here. 3D printing is useful for making your furniture, grips or even a temporary AR lower, and shit like that, not making moulds of frames, slides, receivers, etc.
Once you figure them out, you don't have to waste man hours printing off your 1911 grips, or some stupid novelty picatinny attachment.
Isaac Torres
So ir is useful for useless shit that can be had for cheap or made better with wood, fiber reinforced resin or even pourable polymers and negative molds? Gotcha, I'll be sure to waste my shekels on one.
Also, both ""metal"" and ""carbon fiber"" printing are a fucking scam.
