3D print a Yacht

Just wish to remember that the title of this thread is "3D print a Yacht".

 

I honestly don't know if there is a printable plastic material that approaches the physical characteristics of Roplene. I don't know enough about plastics or chemistry to know if the hot mold could be taken out of the equation, or if the bake in mold is the only way to achieve the physical properties from a plastic.

 

You can print many types of plastic. Structurally they are still not equivalent to a molded part, but the technology is advancing very fast.

 

Whatever comes, of course, we were amazed.

 

Not for 6061. If I remember correctly titanium (G5) powders were running about double the price of mill stock plate a year or so ago, and stainless (316L) was about the same. Of course this needs to be offset by the labor savings and no waste process, so there are savings as well.

Frankly the major cost isn't feedstock it's the oportunity cost of the price of the machines. 10"x10" SLS machines were running $250k or more.

 

The price has gone down a lot. It also depends on the precision you need on the finish. I think the printer we got a month ago was $5000 for plastic parts that can have a rough finish. The good one is maybe $120 000.

 

The problem is, naturally, that most of us don't have Eliot Spitzer's disposable income in our bed stands.

 

Gonzo,

I was thinking of machines for Metalic parts not plastic. They have a lot of issues not faced by the plastic machines, like evacuating air and argon replacement. So metals like titanium, stainless, and aluminium don't have oxygen embrittlement issues. Basically you have to create an oxygen free environment like you do when welding to make stuff from powders.

I really hope the prices come down, and hopefully they will. Long term I can see a boat yard building a huge air tight box to print an aluminium boat in, but I don't see it coming soon.

 

To clarify, I don't think plastic or fiberglass boat building is going to happen. Even if it becomes technically possible, I doubt it will ever become economically viable.

However I do think that metal boat building by 3d printing could happen. It will still take years, but 3d printing could be a real advantage. However there are major problems as it currently sits.

1) the fastest 3d printer of aluminium can do 80cm^3 an hour, or 216 grams of aluminium deposited. So every day a single print head would be able to build about 5.2kg of boat. This just isn't fast enough, so machines need multiple print heads, and faster ones in order to build a boat in a reasonable amount of time.

2) the build environment needs to be huge. For these machines to work you have to have an oxygen free environment, which currently means building a box big enough to put the entire hull in.

3) the current design is to layer by layer fill the build box with metal powder. So the powder supports the next layer of the project. Doug this on small scale parts works fine, filling a 20'x50' x10' box with powder is going to be incredibly expensive. It's even worse the longer the build time is.

4) designers will need to re-engineer hull designs to take advantage of the capabilities. Perhaps designed in honeycomb cores, varying core thicknesses, waterline reinforcing. The list gets endless. I can see a lot of design freedom when you don't have to worry about how to build it.

 

They are using CNC to make molds out of foam for boat manufacture. Perhaps 3D printing could have an application to make a female mold for a hull for example. Certainly you could probably make a scale model for display or testing.
Just how big can 3D printers get?