3D printing an engine?

[Dougs]

As some of you may guess form my signature I work for a company that makes airplane engine bits,
Combusters, seals, vanes and blades
I have for some time seen parts 3D printed in plastic (used for setting up jobs etc) which are very high quality and extreemly acurate and for quite some time we have manufactured machines that sinter weld metal onto the tips of blades (once they are worn it builds them back up again to full height) well now I have seen an arcraft engine vane that is fully 3D printed. I am sorry if I cant go into more details on how its done or who did it but as you can imagine its very cutting edge stuff. makes me wonder though how long it will be before most of the engines are made like this and once the cost comes down a bit to manufacture it many other things just make sence like 3d printed car engines and motors etc.
I doubt a fully 3d printed aero engine will ever happen because of the stresses in the blades but you can definately see the future of manufacturing and its printed!

[johnstevenjacob]

It’s not impossible to fully 3D print a whole aero engine, but it might need some experimentation to perfect it. It’s almost everything is possible now that there are different types of 3D printing materials for different usage quality like this Nylon Filament: http://www.3d2print.net/shop/filament/nylon-filament/.

[Dougs]

Wow just wow I am going to need a new job within 5-10 years that means they are all at it as I have seen RR's efforts

[Mayfly]

I know what 3D printing is as I've seen things printed on TV. Do you need a 360deg photo to print from, I believe that's what they said?

[Dougs]

I know what 3D printing is as I've seen things printed on TV. Do you need a 360deg photo to print from, I believe that's what they said?

There are many ways to generate the 3d model it can be scanned (just like a photocopier) or much easier be drawn from scratch on a 3d drawing package like google sketch which is free and very easy to use.
I am thinking of getting a part for my 1940 lathe machine made by 3d printing now that's a bit of a technology skip.
This is done (in my case) by measuring the part drawing it on afore mentioned software then sending the drawing to Shapeways who will tell me how much it will cost and I can get it made. way more simple than me trying to make it myself, and cheaper too.