Author: John Morton
Date: 2014-08-05 00:28
More than you wanted to know:
I worked in a shop that helped support some of these machines up to 2005. There were two kinds: FDM (fused deposition modeling), which fuses and deposits material from a spool of plastic wire in successive layers; and SLS (selective laser sintering), which uses a laser to sinter or solidify the desired areas of successive layers of plastic powder. The proper name for these things is "rapid prototyping" machines.
Both processes produced plastic parts with low density, a fairly coarse surface finish and tolerances in the .005" to .010" range. These parts seemed appropriate for their suggested purpose, which was to make a solid object from CAD data that you could inspect to critique the design. A good example would be a car door handle - you could test the feel of the grip before committing to tool and die work.
qualitycontrol is correct in saying a blank would need finishing, inside and out, and the materials I saw were not up to snuff in their mechanical properties. It felt as though I could have broken the parts easily with my hands. But materials must be better now if they're making pistols!
I think high-end coordinate measuring systems would have no trouble digitizing
a mouthpiece, and repeatability is very good with the prototyping machines. But by far the lion's share of the work would be finishing the pieces without altering critical dimensions.
John
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
