Hacker News Reader

If you want to shape metal, you need a real cnc machine. "Printed" metal simply cannot have the right internal crystalline structure for a lot of tasks.

View on HN

Do you have a citation on that? That you cannot print metal? What about all the mentions of being able to print metals using various techniques on Wikipedia [1]?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing#Additive_processes

You can indeed print metal using SLS methods, but it uses a powder. The weakness is in the binding agent...

Careful there...GE recently bought a company that is "printing" metal jet engine parts:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/11/additive-m...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com