X-Virus-Scanned: clean according to Sophos on Logan.com Return-Path: Received: from smtp2go.com ([207.58.142.213] verified) by logan.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.4.1) with ESMTPS id 5141533 for flyrotary@lancaironline.net; Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:03:24 -0400 Received-SPF: none receiver=logan.com; client-ip=207.58.142.213; envelope-from=crobinson@medialantern.com Message-ID: <4E85E825.8040703@medialantern.com> Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:02:45 -0400 From: Chad Robinson User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:6.0.2) Gecko/20110902 Thunderbird/6.0.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Rotary motors in aircraft Subject: Re: [FlyRotary] Re: O/T: 3D printing/ additive manufacturing References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I looked at these and they're pretty cool. But I can't for the life of me figure out what I'd make for an airplane with them. Most produce fairly most-sized parts, in other words, not wings, and they use (heavy) thermoplastics - again, not wings. They aren't strong enough for engine parts, and can't fab with metal anyway. (There are some laser-sintering concepts but they're much more complicated and expensive.) Any ideas on how they'd be useful? I just don't see it (yet), but my ears are open. On 9/30/2011 11:33 AM, Ernest Christley wrote: > Requisite link: > > http://reprap.org/wiki/Mendel > > Ed Anderson wrote: