Anything’s possible 🙂

yes:

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Worlds-first-3D-printed-bike-2014.html

EADS/airbus printed a plastic bike. Charge were getting titanium drop outs printed and then that ^

PS 3d printing plastics are not up to the mechanical properties needed yet to make a bike. They are useful for making tools (moulds) for composites but you are limited to low temp cure unless you make a tool from another material from a printed preform. You then lose a lot of the whole point of 3d printing which is internal structures and designs that could not be made any other way.

Early days though. Better materials allowing faster deposition, higher accuracy, higher performance, lower cost etc on the way eventually.

Wonder what empire have against building bikes the normal way? First casting, now 3d printing. Can’t they weld?

Perhaps Jamie is busy 3D modelling a Turner 2010 frame?

Research grants for SMEs doing interesting things like empire/renishaw’s prototype, isn’t that what they were doing?

the technology has been about for a while, and has started to become more affordable. the tricky part is making efficient use of it beyond one off prototypes and novelties right now, best actual use IMO is not “direct manufacturing” but using rapitypers to make cheaper tooling and jigs for production of other items.

EADS/airbus printed a plastic bike.

My brother has a scale model of that on his desk

real-life genius Adrian Smith has been making his own carbon-fibre frames using 3D printed moulds for a few years – does that count?

linky

edit: it’s on the STW home page now!

my shallow claim to fame is that i’ve got some of his early prototype parts in my cellar 🙂

For anyone interested that Empire 3D printed Ti bike is on display at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in the temporary 3D printing exhibition.

Saw it yesterday – looked really nice in the flesh. Unlike 40% of the plastic tat that was on display. Really like the finish. There are a couple of components from the bike that you can handle.