Yahoo Autos Adding a 3-D Printer to the Garage Might Finally Make Sense
The gentleman who sold me my first car, a 1969 Datsun 2000, asked me to cup my hands as he poured out a jumble of letters. I dropped them onto the faded yellow hood of the roadster and arranged them: D-A-T-S-U-N. They likely cost pennies to produce, but they were priceless to me, even the T with missing a nib that would make attaching it to the car difficult. If I lost any of these letters in 1989, that was it. I had no way to replace them. I couldn't scour online auctions, because those didn't exist. While there were far more Datsuns on the road in the '80s than there are now, it was unlikely anyone else near me would part with their precious portions of the alphabet. And don’t even get me started on the anxiety I had about losing the "Datsun" and "2000" emblems on the side of the car.
If I had that car today—I'm actually trying to buy it back, fingers crossed—the thought of losing any of those emblems or letters is less of a concern. They're available for purchase online, sure, but more important, I can just make them at home. Although it'll cost a bit more than pennies.
Just a few years ago, a 3-D printer would have set you back thousands of dollars and required the owner to delve into the confusing and expensive world of computer-aided design (CAD) software. It was a daunting undertaking, and the end result was a lot of early adopters printing a large inventory of Yoda and other sci-fi figurines.
As with most technology, the prices and learning curve have dropped. For those with project cars, it might be time to take the plunge. For a few hundred dollars, you'd have access to printing non-mechanical parts such as badges and hard-to-find interior pieces that may no longer be available.
"Like any good tool, it's best if you have a project for it," Mike Senese, executive editor of Make: magazine, told Car and Driver. Senese said that even if you don't want to get into designing parts, there are multiple repositories out there where hobbyists can download and print items, including a large number of automotive badges and logos.
If you do get a 3-D printer, Senese recommends searching sites like Thingiverse, YouMagine, and Prusa Printers for items you want to print to get your feet wet and learn about the system. It's also smart to search for items you might want and see if they are available before pulling the trigger on a 3-D printer. That's especially true if you're not interested in designing your own items.
If you do decide to buy a 3-D printer, designing a piece is actually easier than you might think. Senese recommends the online tool TinkerCAD. "It's kind of like the Lego of the CAD world," Senese said. It has a shallow learning curve and includes the type of precision measurement tools typically found in more expensive (and difficult to use) pieces of software.
The world of 3-D printing has also opened up possibilities beyond creating single-use objects. Nowhere is that more apparent than with the almost inconceivable task taken up by physicist Sterling Backus and his son: to print a Lamborghini Aventador replica.
While playing Forza Horizon 3, the physicist's son asked if they could build an Aventador from scratch. Printing the panels in 3-D wasn't part of the initial plan. Backus originally expected he would be pounding aluminum and steel panels for the car's exterior. After doing research and buying a 1/10-scale model of the Lamborghini and using that to create a full-size car in the 3-D drafting software, the two decided to print the supercar's bumper as a set of small pieces they would then glue together.
