>>27684858>>27684896Try again motherfucker.
There are titanium, mild steel and aluminum 3d printers, but to achieve non glocknade levels of strangth, they have to use high wattage laser sintering combined with a mixture of welding gasses like hydrogen, carbon dioxide, argon and oxygen. To put it lightly, it uses a shit ton of power and the machine itself is like 30 to 35K.
They're extremely accurate though, but time consuming. But with them, you're able to manufacture products and parts in 1/100th the time needed with welding, casting and so forth, not to mention at a fraction of the price, which is why the Navy, Air Force, NASA and a number of other movers and shakers are heavily interested in them. Instead of having to order unobtainable parts for their machines which could leave a ship or a jet out of commission for months on end as they find someone to make the part they need, they just fire up the printer and by the end of the week, its all good.
The other nice thing about the technology is that with very big parts, you can print them off in sections and weld them together, unlike polymer, while still retaining high strength. Not to mention the metal dust is pretty much infinitely recyclable.
But for the civilian market, you can't get past the need for gas, you'd also need high voltage batteries hooked directly to the machine that recharge from being plugged in, greatly lengthening the printing process. However, there is attempts being made into using more alternative and cheaper welding gasses, with gasses like Oxy propane.
And while the machine will still cost a rough 10k with battery pack, if by the time it comes out, uses a titanium oxide gel for cheaper price point and in place of lithium anodes, you're still going to be looking at an additional 2K. And your power bill will no doubt jump quite a bit if you're not using solar or shit like that.
But, theoretically, you'd never need to buy a gun nor metal part again unless you model them.
