3D printing

Er, trying to print explosives and gunpowder is like trying to print water or hydrochloric acid. Sure, you can print them out in powder form/whatever shape you want, but for them it is the material that you use that matter, and there's no way 3D printing can get around that.

Flintlocks are inaccurate as hell, and also black powder is very violatile and difficult to use. There is a reason after all why it got replaced by cordite. Not to mention that the gun design for black-powder rifles and flintlocks is very different to modern guns.

So you will still end up people printing guns that are not even remotely as effective as guns that you can get from the shops.

And I say it's unwise to say what the technology definitely can and can't do considering it's still in its infancy. 100 years from now and perhaps people can print things that both of us consider impossible.

That might be true, but ultimately irrelevant. They don't need to be as good as a shop gun to be relevant, a musket or minie ball will kill you just the same as a modern bullet.

One should note that printers make assembling specialized manufacturing machinery easier as well; maybe you can't print gunpowder any time soon, but a set of chemistry equipment specialized to make it? Perhaps. Maybe with some molding steps.

Really, hobbyists are getting more powerful in general.

That's as logical as saying "3D printing is still in its infancy. It is unwise to say that you cannot violate the first law of thermodynamics/quantum physics/whatever". 3D printing is not creating something from nothing. 3D printing is taking some raw materials and using them to make things of a certain shape and size. It does not do chemical reactions. It does not convert one form of substance into another. If you can make gunpowder with it from something that is not gunpowder, that is no longer just 3D printing (it can still get involved, but the printing process will be irrelevant to the gunpowder making process since all it will do is turn the gunpowder into a certain shape. The chemical process to make the said gunpowder will need to be done before the 3D printing). Saying that "3D printing can print gunpowder" is as ridiculous as saying "Forging/cutting can make water". 3D printing is a completely different manufacturing process as those that involve chemical processes to make chemicals or raw materials.

Assuming that they can even aim properly with those things.

edited 8th May '13 8:19:23 PM by IraTheSquire

i wasnt using extreme makeover as an example of emergency shelter building, it was an example how how fast we can built things when we really put effort into it.

Also, I have to(forgive the redundancy) question why Wood is "questionable". what question is there, we've been using it for millennia. it's used as structure and you use something else as covering.

And are the materials 3-d printers can use really building quality? I have my doubts in the structural soundness of it. maybe it'd be useful for siding, but not for the actual structure.

3D printing might actually be better for slightly more complicated things like toilets, if you could 3D print a toilet and the needed pipping to dispose of waste then it could held loads in an emergency situation.

Also exstream makeover still isn't a good example of fast building, it's basic alteration (I don't believe they do much wall building) over what in an emergency is a long time that covers only a single property (which is useless when you've got hundreds of families).

The building printers extrude concrete.

A fun concept of a one-piece-building rig, skip to 3:20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyOgDlUWfFE

Of course, I don't think we're anywhere near that point with 3d printing stocks yet.

Typical of our species. We find a way to print in 3D and we use it to make weapons.

Well, it's gonna make those commercials that say "you wouldn't download a car" look silly, because we're going to be technically downloading a car.

It can happen, I mean, they made a functioning gun and are working to copying organs.

Hell, I'm surprised nobody's tried to think up how this could be used for sexual purposes yet.

You underestimate me, sir

To an extent, I'm thinking of buying lots of stock in them now in the chance that at least one stock if not multiple will skyrocket later. Buy cheap, sell higher.

You sicken me ...

... So did you come up with anything good?

edited 9th May '13 6:47:29 PM by Guest1001

Nothing that I'd share online.

Moving swiftly one:

They've taken the 3D guns offline at the State Department's request.

Nope.

All According to Plan. They'll never be able to regulate this technology over the long term.

Once the bullets and all gun internals become non-ferrous, maybe we'll be seeing 3D printer material detectors in high security areas.

I'm guessing it'll be the first time someone tries to use a 'Liberator' to kill or hijack something, or evade a metal detector.

EDIT: I predict there's already an all-plastic design out there, if not dozens of them. The metal piece was only added to stop the originator from being arrested. A Liberator-compatible bullet that has no metal in it is probably weeks away. At that point the usefulness of metal detectors will sink and the need for other detection methods will rise.

At least one commenter on that link I posted above _wants_ the guns to be undetectable, he fears the government that much. Folks like him will be both manufacturer and intended audience.

edited 10th May '13 5:58:23 AM by betaalpha

Outlawing the guns is easy - enforcing it is next to impossible.

^^

I've mentioned before that I want this cat pulled further out of the bag.

Though to be honest, I think that what they need to do is rethink the engineering here. They are still too focused on "gun" as we know them today. What they need to do when they engineer these things is come at it with the mindset of "Plastic device that fires a projectile". It means you need to take rifling into consideration, how bullets/casings are designed, different chemicals to cause the explosion with, etc.

Because a plastic gun isn't going to work very well. At the end of the day it isn't going to be that huge of a threat. A knife is more useful to me than a single shot pistol made of plastic like the Liberator, they won't be making anything truly dangerous until they retool their designs to be purpose-built with being made of plastic as the main concern. They need to think outside of the box.

Nothing has been said about the accuracy of the Liberator either, and it isn't semi-automatic. It's most likely a very inaccurate firearm that is using a small caliber round(in order to keep the thing from flat-out exploding) which can only be reloaded as of now by taking the gun apart and putting in a new barrel, from what I gather. I could do much more damage with a regular old benchmade knife than a Liberator. The only thing that makes it scary to politicians is that the average person is far more psychologically willing to pull a trigger than to get down and dirty with a blade.

Well, the moment people think "they can make guns from plastic!", they tend to forget all sorts of logic and just panic at the idea of an easy to make weapon that can lead to disastrous shootings.

edited 10th May '13 1:02:01 PM by Psyga315

When I think "They can make a gun out of plastic" I imagine the possibilities for sneaking a gun through something like airport security, or disguising a gun or even a plastic nailbomb as something else.

My assumption is that the plastic guns will get better and better. And even if they don't, my twisted little mind conceives of a guy firing two of these single shot guns at once in each hand, maybe having a pirate bandolier so he can make multiple shots. Arrrr! Now it sounds to me like they are a better weapon than a knife.

Or, running with Barkey's 'thinking outside the box' suggestion, what about printing out a suitcase-shaped device that's actually a dozen or more gun barrels. Kinda like a multibarrel firework, you just lift it up and fire one barrel after another until your target's puree. It won't pass an X Ray but could go through a metal detector fine.

You couldn't make plastic rifle bullets (presumably) but what about all-plastic shotgun cartridges? Or just do away ith the cartridge and install the propellant and pellets directly into the one-shot barrel.

edited 10th May '13 2:38:18 PM by betaalpha

How big and heavy are these things? Because I'm picturing a tiny little holdout pistol for if you're getting mugged, not anything like a primary weapon.

@3D printing flintlocks:

Eh... useful for a historical re-enactor, perhaps. But for Johnny Gangster, not so much. He'll be more familiar with today's firearms, which are infinitely more reliable than flintlocks (and more accurate and deadly, too). He's more likely to harm himself than anyone else, especially in a confrontation with police*

...And utterly failing to hit anything, making himself look like a right twit in the process. There's a reason why you don't see any soldier dual wielding guns in an actual fight.

By which point the other guy will have probably shot him already.

As Barkey has indirectly said, plastic isn't the best material in the world for firearms. It probably can't deal very well with the pressures and stresses involved in the firing of the weapon, much less over a prolonged period. A good gun can, I imagine, last you many years. A 3D printed gun? A fraction of that at best. So I think we can stop wigging out about 3D printed guns until designs become more refined.