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Worthless: 3D printing is nothing but a nerd fad that won't leave hobbyist workshops.

6 (3%)

Unimportant: 3D printing will become common but won't be useful for much other than tiny full plastic objects.

8 (4%)

Minor Importance: 3D printing will function as a light industry that will coexist with existing manufacturing methodologies.

43 (21.4%)

Moderate Importance: 3D printing will challenge and slowly replace a large number of existing manufacturing businesses.

104 (51.7%)

Major Importance: 3D printing will completely flip the table on conventional manufacturing and quickly destroy existing business for anything you can make with them.

20 (10%)

Critical: 3D printing will disrupt conventional ideals of work and money so much that they collapse and are replaced in a paradigm shift.

20 (10%)

Total Members Voted: 199

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Infact, regarding that "3d printed guns", wasn't it just the stocks that were 3d printed?

No, the stocks were the only partss that weren't printed.

[sneakey pete]

Um... presuming we are talking about the blog post from a guy a week or so ago that stirred up debate, the only parts printed were the stocks. (to be precise, the lower receiver). The internal mechanisms, the barrel, the magazine, were all not 3d printed, but taken out of a normal weapon.

It was as much printing a gun as making your own fiberglass bonnet and boot for your car is making a car.

[Sensei]

Someone successfully built an AR-15, or at least the receiver (the part that is considered to be the gun for legal purposes because it is where the serial number is printed, you can buy the other parts without regulation) on a printer and found it to be fully functional with more than 100 5.56 rounds through it. I'm sure I'm off on some facts, here's the original article I read.

Ninja edit:

...only parts printed were the stocks. (to be precise, the lower receiver).

No! Bad! How do you equate "lower receiver" with "stock"? It is the most important part of an AR-15 because it is the only part which is legally regulated.

[TheBronzePickle]

I call shenanigans on this. Government approvals on lathes that can create nuclear weapons? Any 5 axis CNC machine would be able to do that, and they aren't regulated or rare...

My uncle works in a machinery factory. The high-grade lathes they have have GPS-trackers built in, and moving them any signifigant distance, even just out-of-state, will get the military on their ass. Of course, these are the kind of lathes that could build more than a simple gun-triggered warhead. They could carve out the necessary solids for a levitated-pit implosion warhead, or possibly even the framework for a fission-fusion-fission thermonuclear device.

[sneakey pete]

My uncle works in a machinery factory. The high-grade lathes they have have GPS-trackers built in, and moving them any signifigant distance, even just out-of-state, will get the military on their ass. Of course, these are the kind of lathes that could build more than a simple gun-triggered warhead. They could carve out the necessary solids for a levitated-pit implosion warhead, or possibly even the framework for a fission-fusion-fission thermonuclear device.

Have you got any way at all to confirm this, apart from what your uncle told you?  edit: google hasn't given me any information on this at all. I'm still calling shenanigans.
I'm just not seeing how those would be any different than a 5 axis CNC machine, and those aren't GPS tracked from what i know. Maybe i'm just underestimating the sort of accuracy that a nuclear weapon requires, or something.

Someone successfully built an AR-15, or at least the receiver (the part that is considered to be the gun for legal purposes because it is where the serial number is printed, you can buy the other parts without regulation) on a printer and found it to be fully functional with more than 100 5.56 rounds through it. I'm sure I'm off on some facts, here's the original article I read.

Ninja edit:

...only parts printed were the stocks. (to be precise, the lower receiver).

No! Bad! How do you equate "lower receiver" with "stock"? It is the most important part of an AR-15 because it is the only part which is legally regulated.

It may be the part which is regulated (which is silly, if you ask me, for the very reason of that 3d printing), but really, it isn't the most important or complex part of the gun mechanically. It is just a shell to hold components in place.

edit: however, you are saying that you can buy trigger assemblies, barrels, upper receivers, etc without any regulation? in that case i can see how the ability for anyone to create a lower receiver is a huge issue, and is "creating a gun" in a legal sense. It still isn't creating a gun in a practical sense though.

[LordBucket]

Critical: 3D printing will disrupt conventional ideals of work and money
so much that they collapse and are replaced in a paradigm shift.

Though the product that will actually do this might or might not be called a 3d-printer.

Once you can:
 * Lay individual molecules rather than the 1mm resolution on most printers I've seen
 * Use X materials rather than one or two
 * Scan objects rather than design them
 * Deposit materials for disassembly into base components
 * Perform print jobs in a reasonable timeframe
 * Upload/download scan data to/from other devices/the internet/etc

At that point, it becomes an instant game changer. Build one device capable of doing those things, and the world will be a different place. It might not be necessary to have a device able to do all of those things to be a game changer...but at that point it definitely is.

End of world economy and most industry within a week.

[sneakey pete]

You still need stuff to make stuff with. I do believe that this will be the sticking point. The "scan an object instead of design it" is the other, and i'm not exactly sure of the practicality of that one

[TheBronzePickle]

Have you got any way at all to confirm this, apart from what your uncle told you?  edit: google hasn't given me any information on this at all. I'm still calling shenanigans.
I'm just not seeing how those would be any different than a 5 axis CNC machine, and those aren't GPS tracked from what i know. Maybe i'm just underestimating the sort of accuracy that a nuclear weapon requires, or something.

I think the main reason they're regulated is their size. These are big and strong enough to build a bomb like what was dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki in less than an hour, or they could build something more advanced like I've already stated.

[Scelly9]

Have you got any way at all to confirm this, apart from what your uncle told you?  edit: google hasn't given me any information on this at all. I'm still calling shenanigans.
I'm just not seeing how those would be any different than a 5 axis CNC machine, and those aren't GPS tracked from what i know. Maybe i'm just underestimating the sort of accuracy that a nuclear weapon requires, or something.

I think the main reason they're regulated is their size. These are big and strong enough to build a bomb like what was dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki in less than an hour, or they could build something more advanced like I've already stated.

Well, you do need the materials. Which, I think would be the main problem.

[TheBronzePickle]

I'm pretty sure these lathes could carve out the machinery necessary to refine uranium, too, actually. They're pretty impressive.

[NobodyPro]

"You wouldn't download a car."
Watch me!

Does this mean we might be able to pirate Games Workshop miniatures in the future? That's... beautiful.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Does this mean we might be able to pirate Games Workshop miniatures in the future? That's... beautiful.

I hate to break this to you, but people are already pirating Game Workshop miniatures with them. Or so I've heard, anyway, not a tabletop gamer myself.

[Scelly9]

Well, if you have uranium, the government already has a big enough problem. A nuculear bomb may be able to destroy a city, but a dirty bomb can certainly contaminate one enough to leave it deserted.

[TheBronzePickle]

I rather think a nuclear bomb would be a better terror weapon, though, if you were willing to invest the time into it. A dirty bomb might fuck up some stuff, but it wouldn't be nearly as terrifying.

[sneakey pete]

I still call bull. There is literally nothing on the internet that suggests the US or any other government monitors and tracks any lathe machinery. Additionally, i doubt that you need a particularly large piece of equipment to make an implosion based core for a small 1940's style implosion weapon, the cores were only 20-30cm across from what I understand.