Texan selling 3D printed gun plans

[hogpatrol]

The court case was a First Amendment one, freedom to disseminate information on the web. The anti-gun libs are in an all out panic. They think they're like the little boy putting his finger in the dike to save Holland. Unfortunately for them, the ocean is still on the other side.

 

[urbanrifleman]

Um. 3d printing code is GCODE. Same as CNC. You could sell the CNC code on Ebay too.

This whole story is a made up lie. As are most of these stories in the American media, which is more corrupt than pedophile Hollywood.... which is saying something.

 

[jdh47]

This is much about nothing and the press has made it an issue. Everyone is going to have to want a set of plans just because it seems to be such an issue. The printers capable of producing the things are prohibitively expensive and it takes skills not many of us are willing to learn. The end product is a gun that is ugly, unreliable and potentially dangerous. I'm not going to hold my breath until someone wins a match with something he whipped up on his printer.

That technology has been in use for a long time. It was only a matter of time before someone applied it to civilian use on a small scale but don't kid yourself into believing that you can afford the equipment to build anything approaching quality unless you are made of money. You can't hide from progress and the gene is out of the bottle with the internet.

Laws are useless except to waste money and control the populace. We don't need no more stinking laws.

 

[TRA]

Um. 3d printing code is GCODE. Same as CNC. You could sell the CNC code on Ebay too.

This whole story is a made up lie. As are most of these stories in the American media, which is more corrupt than pedophile Hollywood.... which is saying something.

The G Code excuse is a joke. won't happen. We are running plastic parts that are taking upwards of 9 hours to run. There is no G code Guru out there capable of writing that code. G code is free.Writing the post processor should keep most of the hot shot programmers on here quite busy, let alone write the code.

 

[scubohuntr]

There are already polymer (read, plastic) lowers out there. You can print one as strong as that, if you don't mind spending a lot more time, money, and effort for a piece with a lot rougher finish that needs quite a bit of work before you can use it, compared to casting or machining one. Television has glommed onto it as a scare tactic. There was an episode of some show or other where the bad guy had a 3d printed gun. Big clunky thing, single shot, pretty much a plastic zip gun. For some reason, the only thing he couldn't print was the firing pin (no problem printing a barrel or springs, apparently, but a firing pin is beyond the tech). Stupid, stupid, stupid. Remember when Glocks came out? "Invisible plastic guns!!! X-Rays can't see 'em!!! Every terrorist will be carrying half a dozen onto airplanes and into the White House!!!" It just really offends the left that they have no control over what someone can print. Where normal people think, "Hey, cool, look what I can do with this!", they think, "OHMYGOD! What if someone prints a gun, or a suppressor, or something we don't like, WITHOUT PERMISSION!!!!"

 

[urbanrifleman]

I can buy 2000 lbs of tannerite without so much as a NIC check...

 

[powderbrake]

Federal regulations say it's OK to make a gun for your own use. They also say that a gun must have some parts which show up on an X-ray. The printed gun in question uses a steel nail as a firing pin to meet that requirement.

Much ado about nothing.

 

[ballisticdaddy]

3d printed parts made with inconel would be at least as strong as aluminum lowers. This is not nearly as silly of an idea as most of the comments here would suggest.

 

[moondog]

As soon as they have plans for a printed F-classer, I'm in!

 

[dttheliman]

Honest - y'all were talking about it - I just pressed print and .....

 

[urbanrifleman]

"Texan" is really just code for Fed provocateur.

 

[pirate ammo]

Honest - y'all were talking about it - I just pressed print and .....

View attachment 1063329

I'm going to try that on my EPSON,,,

 

[pirate ammo]

durn its a miracle,,

 

[ebb]

Dusty when I was at Pratt & Whitney in 1974, I was a draftsman in the blade and vein group. We would make a 10 times scale drawing of a cross section of a blade or vein. A table that had a digital read out and could plot the points given to us from and engineers computer print out. One blade had 35 to 40 cross sections and a complex drawing of the root. Enough prototypes were made to fill up a hub and the hub was installed in an engine. It was run and tested to see if it achieved the desired results (usually more power). Then the chief engineer would some times say it needs more angle at the tip and some gorilla from the shop would take a big bar with a slot in it and bend the blades. They would run it some more and if they liked the test, we would measure the bent up blades and average the bend and make new drawings and start all over again. They told me when in the prototype stage one blade some times cost 30 to 40 thousand in 1974. I can see where printing one would have advantages. One of the engineers told me that when they had bent the blades and messed with motor and it had way too many problems to straighten out some times the would run it and sweep up the floor and throw all the nuts and bolts and scrap laying around right into the running engine just to see where it would brake.

 

[Monte F]

I wish I knew it was this easy before now!

 

[243Mendoza]

At GE we print turbine blades. That is about as strong as anybody will ever need. Thats not saying the printers available for under a mortgage will print anything stronger than a #2 pencil but if you have the money GE will sell you one thatll print those wheels for you

metallic or ceramic?

 

[Dusty Stevens]

metallic or ceramic?

Proprietary metals. The coating on the hot section is where the real experimentation comes. We run 2800degF plus exhaust temps. The blades are hollow for cooling air to run thru them- had to be cast before and scrap rate was astronomical with no way to reuse the scrap for another blade. Metals that cost a bunch to make turned into 20cents/lb scrap.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Dusty when I was at Pratt & Whitney in 1974, I was a draftsman in the blade and vein group. We would make a 10 times scale drawing of a cross section of a blade or vein. A table that had a digital read out and could plot the points given to us from and engineers computer print out. One blade had 35 to 40 cross sections and a complex drawing of the root. Enough prototypes were made to fill up a hub and the hub was installed in an engine. It was run and tested to see if it achieved the desired results (usually more power). Then the chief engineer would some times say it needs more angle at the tip and some gorilla from the shop would take a big bar with a slot in it and bend the blades. They would run it some more and if they liked the test, we would measure the bent up blades and average the bend and make new drawings and start all over again. They told me when in the prototype stage one blade some times cost 30 to 40 thousand in 1974. I can see where printing one would have advantages. One of the engineers told me that when they had bent the blades and messed with motor and it had way too many problems to straighten out some times the would run it and sweep up the floor and throw all the nuts and bolts and scrap laying around right into the running engine just to see where it would brake.

Yes sir times have changed. When we ship blades they are individually packed in foam in their own box and traceable for years to gather data.

 

[TRA]

Proprietary metals. The coating on the hot section is where the real experimentation comes. We run 2800degF plus exhaust temps.

What's the pistons made of?

 

[TRA]

Those of you speaking of printing exotic parts are not in the same galaxy as those thinking they are going to print guns. You are talking about printers that cost millions upon millions of dollars. Those that are getting a woody about someday having one like that in the garage are in fantasy land.

WE, gets thrown around this site like candy. They should sneak into the IMTS in September and get a realistic look at what is really involved in exotic manufacturing. if even anything vaguely resembling what you are talking about is there. Those machines the,"WE" are referring to costs millions of dollars to ship and set up. The floor space in sq footage is beyond most companies capabilities at IMTS.