home depot to carry 3d printers

Wave of the future, and Terry another nail in the coffin of modern gun control.

The link is dead when I clicked it. Latino Times and Home Depot....

This one works for me. Looks like the underlying link is bad, but the visible address is correct.

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-home-depot-3d-printers-20140714-story.html

Great development. This will influence more to get into 3D printing.

This will be the wave of the future, with many more objects other than firearms being created. I would like to print train loads of 80% AR lowers, and hand them out like candy to everyone who wanted one. By that time, as a tribute to those glorious state legislators, each printed lower could have either a name or a likeness of their faces printed on them as well.

Cool, nobody said how much it would cost???


Jim

The problem is that consumer grade 3d printers produce crap that looks bad next to the impulse buy childrens toys near the register at the Dollar Store. You're not going to be printing an AR lower from a Home Depot quality printer. The technology hasn't advanced to the point where the lower cost printers can do anything worthwhile.

Standing by for first fatality involving idiot who thought he could print off a 357...

The upside to this is more for engineering than guns; people will more readily experience exactly the what, how, and why of gun designs.

TCB

One of the box stores is supposed to start having 3d printers available for you to print off your own stuff. I assume they will be higher quality than the home use ones.

barnbwt said:

The upside to this is more for engineering than guns; people will more readily experience exactly the what, how, and why of gun designs.

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Agreed. Simple prototypes will be almost as easy as dreaming up an idea.

The initial quality doesn't concern me. As more people get these and start exploring the possibilities, the demand for higher quality, readily available printers will increase and be filled.

Really home depot?

You are going to carry 3D printers...

While you couldn't even get me a drum sander?

Simple prototypes will be almost as easy as dreaming up an idea.

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Still have to be able to work in CAD/CAM. Not terribly difficult, but time consuming.

As for 3D printers..........yeah, I'm gonna keep running with my Lagun FTV-2 and Hardinge HTC for awhile yet. When they can print in 7075 aluminum, come drag me out of my hole filled with old school machining equipment. Until then, I'll just be a happy little luddite plugging away with X-Y-Z crank handles.

Really home depot?

You are going to carry 3D printers...

While you couldn't even get me a drum sander?

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Try buying a spare coping saw blade. Better, try buying anything that can be used to make a critical component of a basic firearm --a lot of people claim it can be done, but it's actually lot harder than it should be because of their horrible selection. It's like their inventory is specifically geared toward framing and finishing houses, and no more... Eight kinds of miter saw, and not one crummy drill press (not a one, last time I visited)?

'Nuther cool big box development; the Lowe's in Round Rock, TX has a very cozy relationship with its next door neighbor Tech Shop, an idea even cooler than retail 3D printers. You never know, that Lowe's might start stocking bar and rod stock for all the machinists over there

TCB

barnbwt said:

Try buying a spare coping saw blade. Better, try buying anything that can be used to make a critical component of a basic firearm --a lot of people claim it can be done, but it's actually lot harder than it should be because of their horrible selection. It's like their inventory is specifically geared toward framing and finishing houses, and no more... Eight kinds of miter saw, and not one crummy drill press (not a one, last time I visited)?

'Nuther cool big box development; the Lowe's in Round Rock, TX has a very cozy relationship with its next door neighbor Tech Shop, an idea even cooler than retail 3D printers. You never know, that Lowe's might start stocking bar and rod stock for all the machinists over there

TCB

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Funny you mention that, the only place I can get rod stock is 45 minutes away at some place called Rural King.

Interestingly enough, they carry a lot of bizzaro products a city slicker like myself would never have a use for. A plus side is though that they carry ammo and other firearms stuff.

As for the 3D printer, I would seriously question the quality, especially if it's being used for firearms....then again, I know next to nothing about 3D printers, as I don't prescribe to sorcery or devil worship.

You need to start shopping at Harbor Freight

The one commandment of HF:
Do not buy anything that could maim or kill you upon failure

TCB

Sweet. This means I'll finally be able to have that awesome AKR-1547STG42Nanothing the librocrats are scared of.

I believe the patent expired in 2014 for 3d METAL printers. Perhaps with different companies competing, hopefully costs going down, we'll get that technology in the next 5 years or so. Then the parts and guns will be more viable.
Of course we'll have to do some thinking on making sure we don't put the manufacturers out of business.

3D printers for metal do exist, and they're strong enough for gun parts and receivers and the price is plummeting

Makerbot was recently bought out by Stratasys, who makes commercial grade printers, but I'll tell you the Makerbots are very temperamental and finicky. I teach high school tech and pre-engineering and have dealt with 3D printers since 2004. This last year I was able to get a free Makerbot Replicator 2 through Donorschoose.org for our high school and we spend more time fixing it than actually having successful prints. Clogged nozzles, filament jams, part lifting and shifting are just some of the constant issues we've tried to work out over the last 7 months. The two 3D printers our senior students made from scratch 2 year ago have been running more reliably than this piece.

The thought of making gun parts off our machine makes me laugh. As mentioned above, these consumer grade machines have terrible tolerances and resolution compared to what industry would buy for 10 times the cost. Anyone making a gun on a $3000 machine is essentially building themselves a hand grenade.

I work for Home Depot, and I'd be really surprised to see them venture so far off-track into such a specialized product.

The one commandment of HF:
Do not buy anything that could maim or kill you upon failure

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Hahaha.

Their quality actually has been improving in a lot of areas, though. Their hand tools, hydraulic jacks, winches and generators are far better than what they used to be, at a modest price increase. Still lower echelon, definitely, but decent homeowner grade stuff.

I actually ran one of their mini vertical mills and mini lathes for years, and if you spend a little bit of time truing things up & improving tolerances, and if you understand the limitations of smaller, lower quality machines, they're an excellent value.

There wasn't much small scale stuff I couldn't do once I added a decent 4" 2 axis vise and 3-axis DRO:



Things like miniature engine blocks:







RC car parts:







And, of course, gun parts..........of which I can't seem to find pictures at the moment.

TenDriver said:

Sweet. This means I'll finally be able to have that awesome AKR-1547STG42Nanothing the librocrats are scared of.

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Just be sure not to make a gun with a shoulder thing that goes up.

[rimshot]

This joke will never get old.