• lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      8 months ago

      Just cut up the model into a million smaller parts and post them on thingiverse so everyone on that site that already has a 3d printer can print one out and mail it to baltimore. EZ

    • Zacryon@feddit.de
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      8 months ago

      To be fair, you don’t need a very huge 3D printer for that, if you divide it into a lot of smaller parts which can be assembled later.

      Idk, if we can already print steel though and whether we can make it structually sufficiently stable.

      • Skua@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        We can indeed print steel with direct metal laser sintering. I think that the object needs heat treatment afterwards, though to be fair it is almost ten years since I properly read up on it and things have probably advanced since then

      • hascat@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        I find it difficult to believe that breaking down steel to be 3d printed into large structures for a bridge is faster or more energy efficient than casting the parts instead.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        8 months ago

        Maybe, we could just print off rectangular prism-shaped modules, around the right size to fit in a hand, and then assemble them on site. We could even make them out of ordinary clay and fire them for strength. I wonder why nobody has thought of that. /s

        3D printing has it’s place, but more conventional methods have theirs too. If you are counting on a lot of human labour anyway you might as well not reinvent the wheel.