3d printers

Hi,

I think that they already are.  If you go to a site like Shapeways you can find many add on an/or replacement parts for a number of kits, plus some full model builds.  The replacement/mods parts aren't too expensive right now while the full kits can be a bit pricey but potentially close to the costs of some resin models.

In addition, home printers continue to improve.  Here is a small model of a Cruise Ship I started a few years back that has been fully printed on my simpole hime 3D printer, and then cleaned up a fair bit.  In general my home printer is nowhere as capable of the kind of stuff that you might get from Shapeways, but it is capable of doing things that I might otherwise have tried to "build up" with sheet styrene, balsa, or bass wood and putty.  As such, it has been a great boon to me for assisting in scratch building type work.

Pat

Hello!

I think the biggest impact so far is that the aftermarket companies are casting their resin goodies off 3D printed masters. If you already have resin casting capability, 3D printing your masters is speeding up your work immensely. The detail set for the Topol missile launcher I've built was done this way:

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/3/p/179327/2038727.aspx

Have a nice day

Paweł

There are some 3D-based kits but largely not where the 3D is the final product.  Some examples:

Some of the current Blue Ridge ship kits are resin kits made from 3D masters.  The master is printed & cleaned up (print striations etc removed).  RTV mold made & resin poured as normal. 

The True Detail 1:10 ejection seat kits are likewise 3D printed, cleaned, and cast.  

There are som outfits who will print whole 3D railroad model body shells

Geneally, a 3D printed model in a popular modeling scale will be rather expensive even for a commercial producer, at the necessary economy of scale to turn a profit. 

The Tools forum, down in the Tools, Techniques and Reference Materials, below, has had several threads on 3D printers, as well as vinyl cutters.

We're getting closer to a time in which the hardware will be cheap enough that the average modeler will have a printer, and model companies can sell the file necessary to print the kit out, instead of having to invest in the tooling and raw materials necessary to mass-produce kits, package, and distribute them.

As it is, the price of some printers and the material to use to print is reasonable enough that there are more modelers who have bought one and are playing around with printing their own objects.

They are deffinetly haveing an impact on aftermarket. I think they can produce stuff that would not be viable for maindtream companies to build as the 3D guys can simply print to order. I have just ordered my second lot of items from shapeways, in both cases for 72nd ships and items not done by anyone else.

This is not restricted to manufacturers or even small shop creating items for sale on shapeways.  I belong to the 1/48 armor group on facebook, and a core group of people from there have a separate group that are designing and distributing to anyone 3d designs - these include tracks, ammo, hull modifications, etc.. (1/48th of course). 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/3D48th

You will need a 3d resin printer to print it out yourself of course, a FDM printer will mostly not have the resolution you are looking for as a modeler.  Bigger pieces maybe ok.

A friend just bought a 3d printer. Before I could one up the Jones's my wife pointed out the library has one (It's not open because of COVID right now). You can find all kinds of things out there for free, or not. Check out thingverse.com. Also, Ford sells 3d models of their cars on 3d.ford.com. You can buy the file for ~$5 or get the fully printed kit for $40. Not so sure about the detail level looking at the pictures.

There's some amazing stuff out there I'm finding. Now - how to scale the things to the right scale? No idea yet.

I doubt many manufaturers will actually produce kits with printers unless the printing rates of machines drasticaly increases. With only one or two printers, their rate of producing kits would be very low.  I do know they print masters.  I suspect actual printed kits will only by very low volume specialty mfgrs.