Every now and then, something truly game-changing becomes widely available, causing an industry to take a huge leap forward. For the manufacturing industry, this new-fangled wizardry comes in the form of 3D printing.
Think of the traditional methods of production: carving, lathing, sculpting and so on. They’re all subtractive processes. You start with a load of material and you take stuff off it until you arrive at what you want. Doesn’t that seem fundamentally wasteful? Yes? Glad you agree.
The inventors of 3D printing agree too. They wanted to design something that could create an additive process of manufacturing, something that added material as it built, and only added what was needed. The solution was to produce a machine that laid successive layers of material in the shapes required.
So, what can you actually make with this technology? Well, the most common application is in prototype construction: everything from models of the Eiffel Tower to working wrenches. But that is just the start of what this technology could do. In recent days, there have been some strong opinions voiced over the production of a working, 3D printed-gun by a defense corporation in Texas.
The weapon is made almost entirely of plastic and, given that a top quality 3D printer only costs around £5k, the worry was that anyone could start manufacturing the guns without proper regulation. Despite all the hype generated by the US government taking the plans offline (but only after they’d been downloaded 100,000 times!) the ‘gun’ was never a serious threat to anyone’s safety as it had none of the refined features that make a gun dangerous.
Despite the risks, it’s far more useful to focus on the potential benefits of this new technology, which could be massive, rather than the negligible downsides.
Soon the range of materials available for production will stretch well beyond plastic, and you’ll be able to do such useful things, such as 3D printing your own 3D printer! And then what? The possibilities are practically endless. Imagine the day when, rather than going to a shop, you can just manufacture the product yourself, in your own home. Nice.