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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Paintedfigs.Com 3d Printing: We Found a Fancy 3d Printer!


We visited a university yesterday that we heard had a high end, 3d printing machine which nobody was using. Turned out it was no rumor. What was even more fantastic, was that they were more than happy to have us use their machine to print our miniature masters (which we'll use for making molds later).

In the picture below, the structure I am holding is printed to a 25 micrometer resolution. That's finer than my eye can pick out. The machine just needs standard, .STL, 3d design files.


Generally, working with the government out here is massively annoying, expensive, and slow. We honestly weren't expecting to find highly professional, dedicated, honest academics who were excited as we were at the prospect of us using new technologies to produce miniatures.



This is Daniel, our engineer (playing with some sort of etching and milling machine). Daniel and the head of the lab got on famously, they geeked out over technology fairs; insane machines; and German engineering like, well, wargamers over a new codex.

We'll be doing a test print with them soon. We're also working on making molds and building a casting machine, so let's see where this little project goes.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

3d printing machine which nobody was using. Turned out it was no rumor.

Midwest Scrapbook

Mark Gyel said...

Thank you for the good writeup. It in fact was once a enjoyment account it. Glance complicated to more brought agreeable from you! However, how could we keep in touch?

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