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Comment by wlesieutre | Hacker News Reader

Any idea what those printers use? I've heard of C&C machines carving hard parts out of blocks of metal, but 3D printing them would be really cool.

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There exist metal 3D printing technologies, but usually the mechanical properties of the finished material are not as good as an equivalent cast version, although can be as good as about 80%, in terms of Youngs Modulus.

At the cheap end of metal 3D printing, shapeways.com will make you stuff out of stainless steel at $8.00/cm^3. More b2b companies will provide more detailed mechanical info about their process and the results.

A site close to my hobby interests is http://rocketmoonlighting.blogspot.com , where this chap has printed a rocket engine, complete with internal regenerative cooling channels (where you keep the combustion chamber and nozzle cool by pumping the fuel in channels around it before it gets injected in the chamber). I think it's wonderful, and is a reason I'm excited by 3D printing. Also, being able to print Printed Circuit Boards, i.e. printing copper tracks onto a fibreglass substrate, would be a serious boon.

http://production3dprinters.com/slm/direct-metal-slm

They use small layers of metal particles fused with lasers.

There are 3d printers that use a laser to sinter metal powders. It's hard to make that as strong as cast metal parts, but it can certainly make parts that are harder than the extruded plastic that the more affordable 3d printers work with.

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