How is 3D Printing impacting sailboat maintenance?

[SecondBase]

Seeing lots of knock knacks. Is anyone printing parts?

[Stumble]

Yes but not commercially yet. Some major big boat programs are using 3D printed titanium gear, and there are a lot of 3D printed molds being used for castings. But it's still too expensive to mass manufactur much this way.

[tenchiki]

I've thought that it would be good for making patterns for custom bronze (and maybe aluminum) castings, or for light-duty fairleads, mounting brackets, or such

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by tenchiki

I've thought that it would be good for making patterns for custom bronze (and maybe aluminum) castings, or for light-duty fairleads, mounting brackets, or such

The only parts i have seen so far have been for very high strength titanium stuff. 3D printed titanium is the same strength as machined parts but for complicated geometries can be cheaper. So custom deck fittings, halyard locks, that sort of thing. The machines are too expensive to run low load parts where cheaper options would work.

I am sure it will change and the price will come down in time, and my information is more than a year out of date. But I doubt it's that out of date. For now the machine time is still pretty expensive, as that changes expect to see more and more of them out there.