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I mightened have chosen a Torino - but

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My very first car.... A 1971 Torino. Wish I still had it.
 
71 torino, First (and so far only) car I ever wrecked. Sorry, but I don't want it back. I would rather have my 69 tr6, or my 67 camaro, or my 73 tr6, or my 64 tr4 ect.. (first 4 cars i owned) You get the idea.
 
liquid nano-metal?
 
I was going to say the same thing Greg. Looks like aluminium to me.
 
I can't say what it looks like to me. :pukeface:
 
I guess I must be some kind of a savage living out here on the plains; I don't get it.
 
I'm not sure what's going on here. I know a lot about 3D printing, and the level of detail it can produce, but that looks like a bunch of strainers and stuff melted over a pile of goo. I don't see a lot of craftsmanship there. it looks very crude.
(edit)
The more I look at it the worse it gets. It reminds me of a macaroni sculpture made by a first grader.
 
My point was simply that as it becomes more and more accessible - and as the article says "but Mr. Florea has developed a secret process that can form designs made of medal and that formed the body of Gran Torino." that bodes well for the ability to produce short runs of unobtanium for our hobby. I realize it is likely hyperbole and, I know that 3D printing is already used for casting, and, I know that this car is butt ugly - and basically just cast aluminum (or some other pot metal) but, the greater point remains, it is a large scale 3D originated body panel - and that for me is good news.
 
I don't think this process will work well for normal body panels. His pieces are quite thick. Trying to make a cast fender that would be the same (lets say 18ga.) would be very tough to do I'd think. Cast pieces wouldn't have the strength of press formed steel or aluminum either.
 
Body panels, no. But that broken canooter valve housing that no one had produced for 60 years....... OK J.P. I get your point. the process is pretty remarkable. I work at an automation shop, and a lot of what we build is for powdered metal factories. It starts as a powder, gets pressed into the shape of the part, then sent through furnaces to sinter it and make it a solid piece of metal. Lots of transmission parts, Variable valve timing parts, and oil pump parts are made that way. The last one we did was handling the oil pump rotor, inner, and outer housing for the new Corvette engines. Why not replace the press with a 3D printer for small batch/ one-off parts? It's already being done. I've seen it. This process is becoming more accessible every day. Soon you will be able to print parts at home out of "liquid" metal, then fire it in a kiln to set it up. you won't even need to make the casting molds.
 
Banjo said:
Why not replace the press with a 3D printer for small batch/ one-off parts? It's already being done. I've seen it. This process is becoming more accessible every day. Soon you will be able to print parts at home out of "liquid" metal, then fire it in a kiln to set it up. you won't even need to make the casting molds.
Click to expand...

We were talking about this last month in the Healey Forum. A company named 3D Systems sells several models of direct metal printers, so no kiln is needed. Steel, aluminum, titanium powder can be sprayed into a laser beam that moves like a printer head to melt each layer. Accurate to 20 microns.
 
GregW said:
We were talking about this last month in the Healey Forum. A company named 3D Systems sells several models of direct metal printers, so no kiln is needed. Steel, aluminum, titanium powder can be sprayed into a laser beam that moves like a printer head to melt each layer. Accurate to 20 microns.
Click to expand...


I WANT one of those!!!
 
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