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I spent a ton of time years ago making molds for some of the hard-to-get plastic parts for an unusual car of mine so that I could produce my own spare parts. Simply being able to print them would be amazing.

Of course, many of those parts might have physical requirements (elastic deformation tolerance, heat resistance, et cetera) that would not be met by 3D-printed materials, so it's not a panacea.

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Sure, but it might still be more cost-effective to print a shoddy non-critical part. I bet rwmj doesn't care if the wiper widget falls apart in six months if he can print another one.

(Which makes me wonder how recyclable printed parts can be made.)

Print mold. Use actual material you want. (win?)

The initial use of 3D printers was largely to produce parts that could then have moulds made from them. Moulds are pretty cheap and depending on the materials it is easier to print the part to copy than the mould, although both can work.

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