3-d printing??

[bonesfab]

Has anyone tried to have a prop 3-d printed? I have a customer that runs a pretty high end 3D print shop. He does stuff for Boing, Garrett Turbo and so on. He can print this out of titanium/inconnel hybrid mix. They have printed turbine wheels that have tested to 200k rpm and survived. And they are some sizable wheels. One issue i see is final machining of it. It is a v-drive prop. So the key way and taper concern me. If nothing else it would be a bitchin wall art. Thoughts?

 

[monkeyswrench]

Had to figure out "unobtanium", didn't you?
If the program is dialed, there should be limited finish machining needed. If you have a good EDM guy, he could cut the taper and the keyway if need be...may as well go full StarTrek on it

 

[bonesfab]

From what I have seen out of him, I am not that concerned with it. It will need to be polished as they come out of the machine a little rough.

 

[monkeyswrench]

Of course we will require pics...It's like both tool porn and engine porn! Pretty much anything inconnel is badass, and titanium cool stuff! It would be cool wall art...much better than my "Wall Of Shame"...broken parts of hot rods past

 

[lenmann]

There is probably close to 30 years of learning (lots of fails) behind the current state of the art in 3d printing of turbine blades. Some of that knowledge could transfer to props, much of it won't. It seems like moving air vs. moving water are substantially different engineering problems. One compresses, the other doesn't.

That said, it would be a pretty cool deal if it worked. I do know that CNC machined v-drive props from forged blanks cost close to $3k so anything south of that would be a win.

 

[Yellowboat]

How well does that material handle shock? Almost zero shock in a turbine, but lots with a prop.

 

[pwerwagn]

I have a plastic 3d printed prop on a shelf at work. It looks cool, but it’s just wall art.

It would be cool if a decent prop could be made. We have some pretty exotic stuff printed at work, but none of it sees the lifetime of abuse a prop would.