No experience, have an idea but need help

[ps_bond]

I *think* Joe will print things for people, as will I.
Smaller local businesses

[moif]

That's good to know Peter, smaller and local is good!

Don't suppose you print metal do you? I'm guessing not just yet!? I want to try a couple of things in metal, the online services all seem to do it but from what I can see steel is actually the only metal that's reasonably priced. I want to give it a go with a couple of small items

[ps_bond]

Nope - I'm not a huge fan of DMLS yet as I feel the level of cleanup required (compared with print & cast) represents too high a time cost for the other benefits (for jewellery work anyway). At the current level of technology, anyway.
Besides, the up-front purchase cost of the machines is a touch high... There are some strange solutions involving printing metal in a matrix, then burning it out & sintering - kind of printed metal clay, I guess - but the shrinkage is quite high. There's a copper-bearing filament on the market that's supposed to work with FDM printers; never tried it (and either way, you have a porous partially-sintered product). There's also a system that - instead of sintering with a laser - prints layers of binder onto metal dust, which are then used to hold the object together for subsequent firing.

There's a lot of interesting development going on.

[Rachelle]

Thanks ps_bond, useful info