Life's so drokking fantastic because (the rebirth)

[Sideshow Bob]

I'm In the states at the moment on a training course and along with a couple of colleagues I just had fantastic weekend.

On Saturday we hired a muscle car and then headed to Hooters for lunch followed by a trip to a gun shop where we had a lesson and then rented a 9mm pistol and shot at targets with pictures of zombies.
On sunday we went to a baseball game and then got drunk on Mexican chilli beer.

Most of the above is ridiculously out of character for me, but fuck me it was fun.

We did the same kind of thing a couple of years ago when we went to Las Vegas,  after Snowboarding at Lake Tahoe ski Resort...
The gun club was great ( So was Hooters.... ) and we all shot several rounds on Glock 9mms .......
I shouldn't have been surprised at the amount of guns that were available to buy in the Gun shop,  and the types available.....ie Pistols, Shotguns, Hunting Rifles, Automatics et all.....BUT....
what did surprise me was seeing,  on the floor in the middle of the shop ( and for sale ), the same type of gun rig / set up that Mark Walhberg used in the film 'Shooter'....
If I remember correctly it was a Barrett M82A and a group of ( American ) guys were all expressing an interest in buying it at around US$ 7,000.......What one earth does a member of the general public need with one of these things ???...
I know it's in the American 'culture' and 'right to bear arms etc',  but when you actually see something like that close up....it's both wonderful ( aesthetically in both design & symmetry ) and horrifying ( purpose built to kill things a long, long way away )......but for sale to the general public ???

Cheers

[Rog69]

It was pretty much the same with the place we went to, they had everything from high tech assault rifles to guns that looked like they were last used in the civil war and you could rent almost any of them.

I was shocked at how easy it was to get my hands on a gun, all we had to do was leave our driving licenses with the guy behind the counter and pay about £20 each (that included a box of ammo, the gun and safety gear rental, targets and tuition).

[Cyberleader2000]

Life's so drokking fantastic because after the bad day yesterday I came home from college today to find a parcel waiting for me turns out it was figure I bought off a friend for a lot cheaper than I could get it on-line it's also cool as he only posted it last night.

[JamesC]

That figure looks well cool! Never heard of that character before but you've gotta love a Space Sherriff!

[Frank]

That figure looks well cool! Never heard of that character before but you've gotta love a Space Sheriff!

Called Gavin.

[TordelBack]

Called Gavin.

It really is an appalling name for such a cool-looking thing.  It's as if Hammerstein had been called Clive.  Oh, wait...

[Rog69]

I work as a 3D printer Engineer and recently I've started to teach myself 3D modelling as there is a bit of a gap in my knowledge in this area.

I had a quiet day in the office today and I got talking to a couple of the Engineers at work who look after the laser marking equipment that we also service and they were stuck for a couple of parts for a machine they were rebuilding.

They were fairly simple bits so I modelled them in a CAD package and 2 hours later they were printed and fitted to the machine. It's probably one of the most rewarding days work I have ever had  .

[JamesC]

I work as a 3D printer Engineer and recently I've started to teach myself 3D modelling as there is a bit of a gap in my knowledge in this area.

I had a quiet day in the office today and I got talking to a couple of the Engineers at work who look after the laser marking equipment that we also service and they were stuck for a couple of parts for a machine they were rebuilding.

They were fairly simple bits so I modelled them in a CAD package and 2 hours later they were printed and fitted to the machine. It's probably one of the most rewarding days work I have ever had  .

You are the future.

When you're printing yachts for movie stars can I have some money?

[TordelBack]

They were fairly simple bits so I modelled them in a CAD package and 2 hours later they were printed and fitted to the machine. It's probably one of the most rewarding days work I have ever had  .

When the scarcity-based society breaks down completely and I'm burning my Casefiles to scare off the the packs of feral actuaries, I'll know whose name to curse. 

In the meantime, that really is spectacularly cool.  Done well for yourself there, Rog.

[Old Tankie]

I work as a 3D printer Engineer and recently I've started to teach myself 3D modelling as there is a bit of a gap in my knowledge in this area.

I had a quiet day in the office today and I got talking to a couple of the Engineers at work who look after the laser marking equipment that we also service and they were stuck for a couple of parts for a machine they were rebuilding.

They were fairly simple bits so I modelled them in a CAD package and 2 hours later they were printed and fitted to the machine. It's probably one of the most rewarding days work I have ever had  .

Seeing the grandchildren today, which is wonderful.  Also read the post above and thought, what are my two year old and four year old grandchildren going to do for a living when they grow up, if, in the future, you can just press a button and build anything?  Can one of you clever ones on here please explain it to me!

[Sideshow Bob]

Question for Rog69, ( and anyone else who cares to answer )....

I read your post,  and thought that's amazing.... You can now build almost anything using a 3D printer...as you did for the spare parts....I get that !!
But,  the question for me is ( and feel free to ridicule a Luddite here ) Wasn't the 'part' made from paper ?? .........How can that then work in a machine ?? .......I'm assuming the original part was plastic or some such material and was fairly robust.........How does a 3D paper printed piece substitute for this ??...

Cheers in bafflement .....

[Frank]

( and anyone else who cares to answer )....

That's me! Some printers work with paper (dust), but most use a very fine plastic powder to build up an object in layers. I've heard some printers use metal alloys and can produce an entire car, but Rog will be able to tell you more about that.

[Sideshow Bob]

..........Ahhh !!....Lightbulb goes on in head....
Thanks Sauchie,
Couldn't for the life of me,  figure out how a molded / printed 'paper' piece would substitute for a plastic / metal object.....
It now all makes perfect sense......Looking forward to hearing more detail from Rog69.....

Cheers..

[Rog69]

In answer to the question, the printers I work with print with a variety of plastics.

There are 2 families of printers from Stratasys since they bought Objet last year and as a Stratsys dealer we supply both types. We also sell Arcam and Realizer metal printers but I don't have any involvement in those.

The legacy Stratasys printers use a technology called FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling), this works by feeding a filament of plastic through a heated nozzle (kind of similar to a hot glue gun) and drawing the part layer by layer on a build tray, once each layer is complete the tray drops down a few microns and the next layer of the part is drawn on top of the previous one. There is also a second nozzle that prints support material to enable you to have overhanging geometries and gaps between moving parts. The support material is soluble so when the part is finished you drop it in a tank of solution for a bit and it dissolves away.

FDM printers are great for producing very strong parts but the surface finish can be a little rough. The machine in out showroom (a Fortus 400) will print in ABS, polycarbonate and Ultem as well as a few other more exotic plastics, I used ABS for the parts I printed on Friday. They are also really good at producing Terminator heads -



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsRBwIM95xI

The other type of printers that I work with are the Objet range of polyjet printers, these use inkjet technology but instead of ink they are jetting liquid plastic. The software splits a CAD model into layers and these are sent to the printer as a series of 2D bitmap images. The machine prints each image on a build tray, which then drops down a few microns and the next image is printed on top of that as the part is built up. An ultraviolet lamp is shone on each layer to cure the liquid plastic as it is laid down. These also use a support material to fill the gaps and overhangs and it is hosed off when the part is done.

The polyjet printers are great for precision and fine details, they also have a wider variety of materials available than FDM such as rubber-like and clear plastics but the finished parts are not quite as strong as FDM. They are also able to combine more than one material in a single build and fabricate their own digital materials from 2 base materials. You can make really cool stuff from these machines -



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldNAcG0x89M

[Link Prime]

Thought I'd stumbled across the Wot I ate on my Holidays thread there.

Seriously though Rog, that is freakin cool.