Ace-Garageguy

Soaps sometimes seemed to be the last refuge for b-list actors who were past their sell-by dates.

I have some engine kits and engine parts that were 3D printed by wizards exactly like you're describing...from CAD rendering all the way through to final prints. The ones I'm referring to are staggeringly good...and most of the guys here have probably never seen them. Considering the quality and detail, in MY mind, the prices are entirely justified. As Carmac says above, developing accurate tooling from scans for injection-molding (the most cost-effective way to make plastic parts for large runs) may very well take a combination of scanning technology to get the shapes, lines, and proportions copied from existing kits, and some CAD work to tune up fine details. Still, it's all within the realm of what's currently possible, and the prices for exceedingly high-resolution scanners will continue to come down, as all tech does with time. There are, by the way, many poorly-rendered, poorly-proportioned, and marginally printed 3D kits out there too...and I have several that disappointed me mightily considering how relatively easy it would have been to get the numbers RIGHT. As with every field of human endeavor, there are people who are very very good at what they do, and those who aren't and just don't care.

"Diorama in the Style of Picasso" would be an interesting subject for a piece of contemporary greate arte...or you could just nail up some bananas.

COOL!!! I had one of those too. Great for making muddy colored water automatically.

100% agreed. Some is. And some is just stupid change-for-the-sake-of-change. Not everything new is better.

Opposite ends of the same line are equally far apart.

Worries seem to be the only thing some people live for, but I prefer to change the things I can and ignore the rest.

Guess I spoke too soon, as apparently the local PO has gone back to using the driver on my route who can't read English street names and understand numbers.

Breakdown on a foggy mountain inspired some fine pickin'.

Floyd's Knob, eh? Iffen I hain't looked it up, I'da thought ya was funnin.

Bleed all you want, but I'm still not going to give you a cookie.

Madness ends when you're pushing up daisies, but my luck there'll be some bozo planted next to me with his idiot music turned up loud even then.

Lady and laddy are kinda polar opposites, but it all depends on what your definition of "is" is.

Filament printing isn't used for high-quality kits. They're printed with laser-cured goo. The current drawback to 3D printing anything in high resolution is simply the time it takes to do it. For the foreseeable future injection-molding is blazingly fast by comparison. BUT...metal dies that can be used to injection-mold styrene parts CAN be 3D printed, so that's a viable near-term option for cost-effective short runs. The tech to put parts or sprues in a "smart" chamber to be scanned exceedingly accurately already exists, as does the numerical crunch capability required to turn a scan "inside out" to create a print file for injection-molding dies. Integrating all the required steps into a "one touch button" system is not particularly difficult from an engineering standpoint, and "desktop" injection-molding is also already a thing.

Being a good mechanic was always something I took pride in because it requires a depth of knowledge, experience, and decision-making ability few ever realize, but being associated with the current crop through "professional classification" is disheartening

OK. Thanks for the clarification. I had assumed, wrongly apparently, that because when you run a YT video on this site you also have the option to "watch on Youtube" displayed at the lower LH corner of the enlarged thumbnail displayed in the post, that the entire vid was copied to the MCM server. Is the thumbnail itself, displayed in a post here as large as an uploaded photo of any other type, taking up space on MCM server drives?

"Mechanics" and "technicians" who are nothing but parts-changers who can't do anything without scan-tools and yoo toob are different species entirely.

Best to understand what one is so you never use one. They are usually not clear communication.

It's fixed. You can post the old way again. Read through both threads for all the gory details.

Politicians always seem to magically get hugely rich on smallish salaries. Life strategies should include long-term planning for the future, no matter what happens.

Mea culpa there. YT autoimbeds most of the time if you link to a vid, and I've been lax about not letting it happen. I'll be better in the future.

Some of the more spectacular work almost justifies that, but certainly not everything. Nor is there a need for excessive incremental multi-angle shots during the build process. Or copying every photo when a quote is made. HOWEVER: the modification Dave was trying to implement was specifically intended to limit data uploaded to INDIVIDUAL POSTS, which would alleviate much of the problem for the time being. Unfortunately it didn't go as intended... ...but everything is back to normal now.

Recruits to any endeavor or group kinda like to know what the mission is with no ambiguity...if they're the kind of people you want to recruit. College degrees in many majors today cost a lot and leave graduates virtually unemployable.

"Drag" and "choose files" is back.

Geez...y'all don't need to be in a rush to be deleting stuff. Some fixes are in the works to get the storage and upload functions back to normal. Calm down.