MakerBot's 3-D printers will soon be able to produce items that look like bronze, limestone, and wood, thanks to a new line of plastic-based composite materials shipping later this year. But the launch may be too little, too late: Entrepreneurs and artists interested in working with metal and wood are already embracing desktop milling machines that can handle the real deal.
The calculation is simple: Buy a MakerBot Replicator, the leading desktop 3-D printer, for $2,889, and you can produce plastic prototypes or the kind of trinkets that you might find in a Happy Meal. Buy a small-scale milling machine like the Othermill, which retails for $2,199, and you can make jewelry and mechanical parts out of everything from aluminum to walnut.
"Once you can cut metal, you can make things that last," says Danielle Applestone, chief executive of Other Machine Co. "For the first couple of months that I was working here, I was scared of cutting with metal. It was louder, I was worried I was going to break the tool. But as soon as I jumped in, it quickly became like wax to me."
"Metal is power, it really is," she says. "You don't go back."
It should be noted that MakerBot's base model also went from $400 to almost $3K when Stratasys acquired them.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday June 12 2015, @06:28AM
A friend of mine came up with his own particular way to register his disapproval with safety training.
At the end of the session the foreman would ask them all what they had to say about what they'd just discussed:
"I learned a lot." in a deadpan voice.
A few years later an entire stack of plywood slipped off a roof then fell on his back. While not disabled that I could tell he told me it caused him chronic back pain.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]