/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>1939657
I did the printwork, I outsourced the casting to a local artist. Getting these parts made would have cost at least 300EUR on a CNC mill, now I've got a manifold extension for ~50EUR. Lead is the easiest, but if you want a functional object brass is probably your next best bet. Aluminium is better, but more difficult in terms of temperature. He did it by lost-PLA casting, which involves plaster of paris instead of sand or powder, much more accurate.

>>1849537
I didn't DIY it completely, but I designed and printed a spacer for a mate's carburetor, brought it to a local artist and had him lost-PLA cast it in bronze. Doesn't seem worth it to build a forge myself when he can do small parts like these for under 50 EUR - imagine milling this exact same part with all it's curves for that price.

>>1793921
I refer you to >>1793613:
>If you don't know how to build a gun without a 3D-printer, you probably don't know how to build a gun with a 3D-printer.
You can lost-PLA cast a receiver blank (brass or aluminium would work), but the tolerances on casting are so poor you will not achieve a lot of the required final sizes required for a receiver to work, nevermind threads. You would know this, if you knew how to build a gun without a 3D-printer.

>>1793925
>casting aluminium is not as trivial as youtube makes you believe.
My local foundry does excellent work in converting any PLA parts I give them, into brass or aluminium. They have a lot more experience and great equipment, but they had 0 experience in lost-PLA casting before I came to them. Worked fine for the first bronze casting, waiting for aluminium next.

>>1757005
Just took a look at some of my previous projects:
>Intake tube for Indian motorcycle
>Cupholder
>Car interior replacements
>Replacement parts for reloading press
>Christmas bulbs
>Prototype molds
>Phone mounts
>Custom thumb protector
>Prototype screw for scooping plastic off waterways
>Speedloaders
>Bipod adapters
>General sight modifications
>Chamber flags
>Stencils
>Sample holders for some biometrics project
>Wind tunnel compressor to prove somebody's simulation
>Holder for lab consumables (towels, gloves, ethanol)
>Bearing housings for scale vehicles
>Protective casing to prevent plastic shredder turning into finger shredder
>Replacement buttons for ancient milling machine
>Bullets
And finally:
>3D-printed monocoque for a Formula Student racecar

The advantage of all of these is that I can just fire and forgot after you design the part and sling them into a properly setup printer, which you can't do with traditional tools/machines unless you have CNC-machinery that's way too expensive to use for the functionality that these parts provide - or simply can't even produce the parts because the geometry makes it impossible or incredibly time consuming.

>>1747513
My local foundry made me an inlet manifold adapted after I printed it, turned out very well. Could be done in aluminium, I chose brass because it looks sweet on a red motorcycle.
You need to find someone local though, otherwise shipping will kill the price benefit. You don't want to go to an industrial foundry though, they don't even bother with small projects like this. Your best bet is a local artist who works with bronze, since they can probably cast aluminium too. In case it's a really small project ask a jeweler/goldsmith, but they usually charge out the ass too.

It fits, fuck yeah