World’s First 3D Printed Metal Gun
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
 |
|
Find Local
|
Categories
- ATF (769)
- Death Match (10)
- Eminent Domain (225)
- In the bag (9)
- Notes to Junior (546)
- Poker (74)
- Recipes (142)
- Shotgun Noob (11)
- The Airing of Grievances (19)
- uncategorized (47,725)
November 7th, 2013 at 11:23 pm
Shiny!
November 8th, 2013 at 3:07 am
Didn’t hear who or how the barrel was made.
November 8th, 2013 at 6:01 am
Is it just me, or did the section with three shots look like the action was visibly rough and sticking? I mean, this is probably just a prototype, but it looks like it needs a bit of work. Still, damned cool.
November 8th, 2013 at 6:14 am
ern: I was just about the ask the same question. It looks like its sticking a bit before coming forward.
I kind of wonder about the background of these guys; are they gunsmiths, engineers, both? If they’re engineers who just decided to make a gun to showcase their laser sintering process, I can see why the final product might not be quite as polished as something from, say, STI.
November 8th, 2013 at 9:40 am
No info on the cost of making the parts using laser sintering. I’d expect this prototype to end up in a gun high end collection or museum if the report is true, with the auction paying whatever the (likely exorbitant) cost was to manufacture it.
November 8th, 2013 at 9:50 am
> JFM – According to info in the company’s press release, its hard to tell whether the barrel was printed (someone needs to clarify that press release): “The 3D Printed gun barrel sees chamber pressures above 20,000 psi every time it is fired.”
> Rob – Don’t know the background of the team and it probably doesn’t mean much, but one of the VPs said the company holds an FFL: “In fact, as far as we know, we’re the only 3D Printing Service Provider with a Federal Firearms License (FFL).”
November 8th, 2013 at 1:29 pm
They say they printed the gun barrel.
If so…more proof that 3D printing will be a game changer. Ever hear of ‘destructive technology’?
This is one more step to the ending of modern manufacturing. Forget guns – getting a solid metal from a printer that can handle high stress loads (we need high tensile, too) is a big effin’ deal. This is not the end of the road, but it represents a big step.
In the future, your car might be printed. So too your replacement knee.
The question I have is where they used the SS and Iconel ‘components’. My guess is they had to build the slide of machined parts made of Iconel to buttress the printed barrel – in essence treating the barrel like a single component in a larger assembly so it didn’t have to handle the whole load without reinforcement. Still, it’s a pretty cool feat.
I, for one, welcome our new 3D Printing Overlords.
November 8th, 2013 at 1:32 pm
Also:
Leave it to a bunch of gun noobs to see a semi-auto 1911 pistol manufactured using the equivalent of a Star Trek replicator, and then complain about the finish on the action.
😉
November 8th, 2013 at 1:56 pm
Neater than a skeeters peter. I can’t wait till one drops out of the vend o matic.
November 8th, 2013 at 3:52 pm
@Patrick actually I’d say the finish of the action is important, it tells us how usable the technology is in its current state.
With current DLMS you would probably be better off leaving a little extra material on interface parts and machining them down for a smoother action, but without any sort of finishing work it’s still apparently good enough, so that’s a good indicator of current technology levels.
November 8th, 2013 at 5:19 pm
Needing 20 minutes with Flitz and some elbow grease to perfectly fit the parts is nothing in the grand scheme.
November 8th, 2013 at 5:39 pm
So, has anyone heard the “Lamentations” of Schumer’s and Bloomberg’s Women at their Feet yet?
November 8th, 2013 at 6:22 pm
I’ve been thinking it was only a matter of time before someone produced a pistol using laser sintering tech. SLS is coming off patent soon, so expect inexpensive home SLS systems to be available shortly thereafter…
November 8th, 2013 at 6:34 pm
Wow.
I wonder if the powdered metal will last as long as a forged frame?
Maybe they can do a 100,000 torture test and find out.
If it does you can expect to see some very very good guns and much lower prices.
Just copy the specs of a Les Baer .45 and make them faster than paperclips.
November 8th, 2013 at 7:39 pm
This is still *early* days. Compare the Ford Model A’s performance and life expectancy to the $600 beater you can buy from that guy down the block. Compare the Wright Flyer to an F/A-18. Compare the first matchlocks to the ARs most of us have today.
This is *going* to get *better*. When anyone, anywhere, can make anything, *without anyone’s permission*, the whole world will change.
This is the beginning.
November 9th, 2013 at 12:45 am
Wow, something awful must have happened to you in a Model A. I think you’ve got a few metaphors mixed, there, but don’t worry, there’s an app for that.
An F/A-18 is made in several plants full of skilled machinists. The Flyer was made by two brothers, their sister, and one machinist. One lathe, one sewing machine. You know what an F/A-18 can’t do? It can’t wing-warp, that’s what. Wing-warping is coming back, they tell me. It’s…3-D.
Just pointing out, it’s kind of a shitty attitude to defile the achievements of v.clever guys who are no longer standing here in the bar to clean your clock. Your world-project of making things “without anyone’s permission” is waiting for someone else’s patent to expire. That’s hundred-year-old futurism right there.
This is the beginning, all right — of a dreamy world for guys who do not like leaving the gaming console. Make sure Mom’s basement stairwell is wide enough for your cabin cruiser. Because if you, like, gave a shit about making things for yourself, you’d already have a used Bridgeport in the garage, and your hands would be all oily. See my point?
November 9th, 2013 at 7:25 am
Comatus, I think you missed Jeffersonian’s point. He wasn’t defiling their achievements, he was just pointing out that their initial designs weren’t optimal and had all sorts of problems that later designs fixed. It’s not shitting on their achievements to point out that the initial Wright Flyer didn’t break Mach 1, it’s just saying that future iterations are going to improve, and to keep that in mind.
Really, if these guys weren’t gunsmiths, and basically took CAD files and printed a fully metal gun, including the barrel, without any more knowledge of gunsmithing than someone, say, like *me*, then this is 99% of the way there. A few tweaks to the design to accommodate the printing process, and this thing will change the world.
Of course, it’s going to put inordinate amounts of pressure on Federal and State governments to ban it, especially if it can produce close to the same quality weapons as are on the market. Plastic pistols that break after a few shots are one thing. This is completely different.
November 9th, 2013 at 3:34 pm
Bubblehead Les Says:
November 8th, 2013 at 5:39 pm
So, has anyone heard the “Lamentations” of Schumer’s and Bloomberg’s Women at their Feet yet?
No, but, I can hear the lamentations of the women, “Schumer and Bloomberg” at my feet……
November 9th, 2013 at 7:40 pm
Yeah, what ern said.
Jeez, dude.
November 10th, 2013 at 9:12 am
Yeah, I too noticed the hiccups of the 1911 returning to battery. Could the problem be as simple as not enough lubrication and/or a weak recoil spring?
November 11th, 2013 at 1:23 pm
@Comatus: I don’t want to over-read your exuberant defense of inventors, but thought I’d share the viewpoint of one. I got patents (things I actually invented and sell) and have no problem looking at them with a few years experience down the hatch and saying to myself, “that would be better if I just…”
And my employees frequently (and belligerently) tell me how my Original Good Idea(tm) is “teh suck” compared to what they just did to make it better. Customers offer advice all the time. I usually take it.
I assure you I am not unique in this regard. Most everyone who has made something good will accept and even seek out improvements to it, especially once time has tested the idea. Rather than ‘clean their clock’, I think we’d much rather buy these people a beer. Or hire them. That’s what I do.
And another point: Brideports are nice – and I am typing this about ten minutes before I head out to fire up a Miller welder – but the biggest failing of good ideas is execution. Going from paper to live object is hard for non-trivial devices. I can run a lathe, mill, welder and usually any sort of tooling I can find. I have also used rapid prototyping equipment (3D printing is one subclass of that) and would trade in all of the above for a semi-decent RP environment. Huge bang for the buck.
Henry Ford’s big idea was not the automobile – it was the system of rapid tooling, commodity parts and execution we now call, “the assembly line”. I dare suggest that old Henry would have appreciated in no small way the ability to make things from his mom’s basement.