Wednesday 16 April 2014

Now even Guitars can be made on a 3D Printer?!

If you're unaware of what 3D printing is, it is worth investigating as it seems to be where technology is headed. It is predicted that in the future we'll all have 3D printers in our houses and be able to "print" anything from screws to cars.

3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digitial model. This is achieved using an additive process, where layer upon layer is laid down in different shapes. A 3D printer is an industrial robot capable of carrying out an additive process under computer control. There has been a exponential growth in the popularity of these machines since they became commercially available in the last few years.
It seems every week there are brand new objects that can be manufactured by 3D printer, the latest and most impressive for us are 3D guitars.
ODD Guitars a company in New Zealand makes guitars using Selective Laser Sintering and in my opinion they're pretty damn impressive...




A thin layer of nylon powder is repeatedly spread on top of the last, it is then fused in the correct locations for that particular slice of the component.



The layer is then dropped down a fraction of a millimetre, and another layer of powder is spread on top of the first.


This is then repeated until the guitar is built.



And they don't sound half bad either!


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