The need of the base model/moulds used in other far faster options for production was kind of my point about doing just one copy. Yes, 3D printing is excruciatingly slow compared to so many other high volume options, but all those other methods that are so much faster and more cost effective to do in volume generally don't stack up to modern 3D printing for producing a single copy, or even a handful of copies in some cases.

Add in things like woven fibre-3D printing, and you can even produce parts that are far stronger than what you can do with other production methods.

You also need a 3D model

Vacu-form still requires skills and cleanup. I'm also skeptical that the voids below the sculptures chin and belly will turn out well.

edit: you also need a positive of the sculpture in the first place...

And a 3D printer can read your thoughts ?

As far as vac-molding goes, you use a 2 part mold for something like that ...

I'll personally remain skeptical of 3D printing until I personally work around a facility that turns out better products than low quality, featureless models .

Here is the problems with the whole concept of "3D printing"
1: Very slow
2: The printer can not handle any kind of complex 3D shapes. What you see in most unusual "3D printed" items is several bits that have been glued together after they were printed.
3: The finished product is rubbish. It's very rough and needs to be sanded down in a polisher

The quality of the model depends on the materials and the method of printing. Right now, there are two major contenders, one is ABS vs. PLA. Here's a website that briefly describes their differences. In a nutshell, ABS has higher resolution, but more toxic and radiative. While PLA is more friendly for home-use, but suffers from the low resolution.

So ABS printers are typically for professional use - confined and controlled environment with radioactive protections.

PLA printers are for home use, perfect to create small home decor objects.

It's been reported that ABS printed models are stronger, but other reported that the differences is not significant, unless you are using your models to support heavy objects, in which case you should just buy something from a nearby home improvement store.

Here is the problems with the whole concept of "3D printing"
1: Very slow
2: The printer can not handle any kind of complex 3D shapes. What you see in most unusual "3D printed" items is several bits that have been glued together after they were printed.
3: The finished product is rubbish. It's very rough and needs to be sanded down in a polisher

You know we don’t live in 1856 anymore right?
None of these points are valid today, and #1 was never valid. The images you posted are rubbish because whatever printer made them is 200 years old.
Spend a bit and buy something modern. They are only $2,000 these days and lots of different methods in which they work. High-end ones have a layer thickness of around 0.012 millimeters (http://www.3ders.org/pricecompare/3dprinters/?tab=Details).


L. Spiro

+1 there, i'm currently contemplating high end printers (100K€ range) for a startup and what we've seen even at much much lower price point and in full color is absolutely uncomparable with the crap fox posted.

I am with 3D printing being mostly hype atm. It can be survival for replacement parts atm but no way near the ultimate solution to manufacturing something right at your home.

It will take years for 3D printing to be integral yet replace traditional manufacturing process.

I do a fair bit of playing around with robotics, and one of the biggest pains is producing all the bulk parts. If you want an analogy to building a living thing, you buy things like "muscles" (servos, motors, whatever), which are very general purpose, but need to make the "bones" and connective tissue, which usually aren't general.

Before the era of 3D printing, this meant either wood parts, or laser cut metal parts. Wood is easy to work with if you don't have a means of efficiently cutting metal, which usually means contracting out to a machine shop for final-produce grade stuff. In the era of 3D printing though, it's totally trivial. So yes, I own a 3D printer, and use it frequently for hobby projects that involve producing early versions of projects. Additionally, the printed stuff is super light, which is pretty important considering how fragile it is, but also means you can use lower grade servos than you'd be able to use with metal parts. Usually my procedure roughly goes as follows:

1- Design.

2- Print a prototype with the 3D printer.

3- Get it working with cheap electronics.

4- Replace components with metal once I've got everything how I want it, and drop in beefier motors to offset the increased weight.

The 3D printer makes it super easy to iterate when something looked a lot better on paper than in person. What would take weeks and loads of effort to do with metal/wood at home takes a few hours of printer work on the printer.

All of this is exactly what I have in mind- prototyping. As well as the experience of building the itself. I do a lot of simple modeling for my games and videos and 3d printing is the next logical step. Two years ago 3d printing was a big meh to me. No more.

I've done a lot toward strengthening my creativity and artist's eye, but function still remains more important than form. I'm confident I can work the layering texture into the design as I feel I need to. If it need a smoother finish some time down the road, I'll give the part an acetone dip.

I'm not looking to make fine art- I'm looking to make something out of nothing(or more accurately, out of an idea)

Imagine, model, print- BAM it's a real part! Who cares if it doesn't make it into a gallery?

I'm building this printer out of crap I have around the house so probably one of the first things I'll print is better parts for the printer itself and go from there.

I think we need to keep in mind that nearly every major piece of technology that is ubiquitous today was found irrelevant by many immediately after its introduction. Cars, airplanes, T.V, and personal computers, to name a few, were all viewed by many as technologies that will never last. However, if you look at the state of the technology when it was released, it wasn't all that hard to imagine it failing. The first cars were noisy, dangerous, hard to control and had no form of protection from the elements. Airplanes were made out of wood and fabric and flew for a few minutes at a time, if that. T.V. was a joke when it came out. It had a black and white screen the size and shape of a dinner plate with fuzzy, grainy pictures and lousy sound with less than a handful of stations. Personal computers were massive, ungodly expensive beasts that were barely more than very large and expensive typewriters.

The current state-of-the-art for 3D printers is, admittedly, poor, but that is a temporary issue. Give it time.

Yeah, industrial 3D printers are a whole different animal. I think 3D printing shines more where lower production volume is needed and the cost for the tooling in traditional methods is too high in comparison.

I never got really interested on the subject.

But if I was a 3D modeler, Id probably get one to make articulated action figures. (I just found out that thats actually possible, thats so frigging cool)