Welcome to 3D From Nothing Powered by Metalmite, the Show where you will learn all about 3-D printing and additive technology, and I am your host, Tom Gendich.
Metalmite is a full-service machine shop that specializes in 5 and 6 axis CNC machining, CNC grinding, Wire EDM and 3D Printing. We are a 50 plus year old corporation started by my father, Michael Gendich the Third. I took over as CEO in 2009 and am continuing the manufacturing legacy as a third-generation owner.
In these programs you will learn what kinds of printers are out there and what kind of materials you can print on. Who is using these printers, what kinds of things should you be looking at printing. As well as hearing form experts in the field through interviews we will be conducting. And, as always you can go to our website 3-Dfrom nothing.com can get free giveaways and learn more about what we’re doing and how the name comes from my father he said at some point will make parts out of nothing – and today we are doing just that with 3D Printing and additive technology.
Welcome to the Third episode of 3d from nothing powered by Metalmite. We’re so excited to have a special guest with us today who is indeed an
Industry Specialist” in Additive Technology and 3D Printing.
Brandon Crain- Bio
Brandon Crain has more than 15 years of in-depth, technical, and hands-on experience in traditional subtractive manufacturing. He has worked his entire career as a team member of a growing and successful family run waterjet cutting and machining service company. Brandon has experience in all areas of a thriving small business, including shipping and receiving, purchasing, sales, quality management, and business management. His career began in abrasive waterjet operation and programming. After a few years of working mostly in 2-dimensional plate cutting, he moved into a role managing manual and CNC machining services and from there, assumed the position of general manager of the company. Understanding and experiencing 15 years of busted knuckles, broken tools, and scrapped parts, he gained interest in the growing 3D metal printing / DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) industry. Recognizing the capability of additive manufacturing technologies and seeing opportunity to participate in the next industrial revolution, Brandon and his wife, Kristi, established Texas Metal Printing, LLC in 2015 to offer access to 3D metal printing technologies. Brandon also helped start “IX Fruits Investments” where he consults in manufacturing, real estate, and investing with like-minded professionals who are striving for excellence in business, spreading the Gospel while they work, and providing growth for our families and investors.
Tom: Brandon, welcome to our show and thank you for joining us today.
Obviously just read your bio there, which is on your LinkedIn profile, but can you tell us a little bit more about that start that you’ve had. Yeah, just as briefly as the candidates it was several years ago now looking back junior and high school that as a floor sweeper, ditch Digger, all things dirty and filthy that nobody gets to do in the summertime that got designated to me.
And it was a very small run. Family run business is about five employees at the time, back at night, 1990, there was a new waterjet machine
so anyway, learn how to run that. Got to be an operator for a little while, then stepped out of the shop floor, got into estimating and sales, starting interacting with customers vendors and all of that stuff.
And over the course of about 10 years from we had grown from about five employees to 15 or so started adding in some machine capability
so it sounds like the water jet itself was an upgrade for that facility. So what, prior to that, how were they getting their plates cut or how were they milling them or. It was a relatively new company. And so a lot of the plate cutting was outsourced. And the owner of the company, my uncle, he was spending a lot of money every month to these vendors for plate burning, like cutting, and a lot of times it was turnkey, that’s all that needed to be done.
And then we took one machine and got up to four machines over the course of 10 years, just paying as we went, small, organic growth. Very little debt and but yeah, that was that. So it just, there was a demand, it was growing, that was when he started five machines in Houston.
There’s probably 500 could be 5,000 in Houston today. I couldn’t even tell you, it’s just a technology that just ramped up, the benefits of it were obvious. So I think that’s a good point. I think we’re gonna we’re to connect that to 3d printing in a minute, but so the new technology came in.
And as all of a shop owners, do we look at the return on investment or the ROI calculation? So he was obviously spending a lot of money. At other places, he saw the value of bringing something in house. Obviously these water jet machines are many thousands of dollars, right? Depending on how large, I I know there’s some that are half a million dollars.
But he did some calculation brought one in and you said within a relatively short period of time, he had four. And so obviously we went from one to two within 24 months, as soon as you got one, it was like, it wasn’t enough. There was a lot of maintenance with them too. If you have downtime on one, you need to have a backup machine or whatever, but, we ran two for probably three or four years, and then it was like we need something bigger.
So I’ve got the big there, one, five or six years in. And we went even bigger than that, you’re eight or so from you being there. And so they just scale, with the man.
It’s interesting as we’re sitting here talking about the additive. Addition to our industry. And I know I cut you off a little short you’ll make that leap here in a minute, but I wanted to just draw that. String of connection to even something as simple for you and I, a water jet or a plasma cutter for cutting plates.
It’s a value add and you bring it in house and you’re not relying on people outside anymore. But anyway, so you guys got that you were obviously the one that trained and learned it. And then you moved on and then in your bio, as you went on to CNC machining. So it, can you talk a little bit about the CNC machining side of it?
Yeah, for sure. So the, like I said the plate cutting was two dimensional and we did have, we, our customers that we were servicing well, giving them great service on the 2d plate stuff, but we would send them parts that still needed to be tapped. They needed to be counter sunk. They needed a bevel, some sort of machining.
So now we’re giving a turnkey, you give us a PO, we give you a finished part type operation and just hammered on service.
. Built that reputation up. Got a good relationship going with our customers. Grew the customer base got more customers. It was very organic, growth, not, no big, huge cash infusion or anything like that.
Customer service was a differentiator for sure. When we built up the reputation, they started sending us, straight machine and components. So when we got our first CNC water, jetting was around 80% of our revenue.
And then the finishing part was probably 10% of our revenue. And so that started to shift over time. Waterjet became more competitive, right? A lot more machines in town, so w we may have started reducing our growth. We still were growing, but slower growth on the water jet side.
But our CNC , the quality and delivery for CNC machine was just boring. Nobody was doing what they said they would do, stuff would come in wrong. And we found a unique team of people that we could get it done, and And so the machine ramped up to where by the year, 20, whenever I left there 2017, 18, it’s 55th machining versus waterjet, the revenue really came up on the machining side.
And it was just fun to see that happen.
And then it sounds like additive manufacturing came into the picture. So what kind of drew you into that? Why did you, what kind of parts were you looking at where you had to look into additive?
. 10 or 12 years ago. . So the very first exposure I got to 3d metal printing . It was a bronze kind of mixture. Kind of hybrid with this binding agent. And you had to print it in this green state and then you would take it from the green state, go put it in an oven and then bake it.
And then you got your part. . Even if it’s the greatest thing on the world, engineers are gonna have to get familiar with it. There’s going to be a learning curve . I really think it’s cool. It’s just not ready. And so I went on about my business.
And then we had this really challenging part, and this is where everything changed for me. . It was four pieces they needed, it was about the size of my hand and they needed them Monday delivered. It was 17, four stainless. And it had this weird curvature thing.
We were going to run it on a fourth axis. And we got the order like on Thursday night, so we had to expedite the material cause we didn’t have it rush it in here right now. I had to pick out tooling, order it overnight, get it in here for Saturday.
Had to start programming immediately start thinking about fixturing immediately and then schedule the guys to show up on Saturday to run the job. And then hope that everything went right between Saturday and Sunday. So we could deliver the parts on Monday. And we’d done this type of thing even before rush jobs, CNC, whatever.
But this was a challenging part. The fixturing wasn’t right. The program. Wasn’t right. Something just challenge after challenge like man, and then. Saturday, one of the operators didn’t show up and I was like, ah, we’re never going to get this job done. So I had a contract program at the time and he had a plastic 3d printing machine at home.
And when he came through the door on, I think it was Sunday. He, but this plastic representation of what we were trying to make in my hand. But, you know what, it’d be really cool if we would have printed this in stainless would be . Started Googling well.
Oh they have, these are materials I recognize in Inconel, 17 four, three 16 stainless titanium. Very interesting. I want one. How much is that? I got you, can’t not have one of these machines if you’ve been in a machine shop for 20 years. I don’t understand like how you, if you have any energy at all, you’re like, man, this is the coolest thing.
And they see the price tag and you’re like, nevermind, that thing’s expensive, but who, okay. We’ll just. Like you do with anything else, sometimes you start buying it out, right? We’ll buy some for a while. I’ll make sure there’s demand. And then once there’s enough demand, we’ll buy a machine because then we’ll know it’s proven, like we did with the waterjet machines, you’re spending so much with the vendors and then it makes sense to bring it in now. So we’ll try that nobody was offering it as a service. Everybody that was buying these machines. Were doing their own in-house thing and developing their own technology. And so there were no service bureaus in my whole career at this point now 15, 16 years in that’s my dumb, good attack.
I’m know how to it service people. I know how to take a piece of equipment. That’s relatively new technology and do something with it to where people will, buy it. And so I knew I wanted a machine and I was really excited about its ability. So why don’t we buy it? Talking about why, but, we got this money let’s pray on that. Man, we did, we’re people of faith. We pray about big decisions. We don’t pray enough about the small ones.
Like we probably should, but. Over a period of time, we went through the SBA loan process. There were a lot of hurdles, a lot of roadblocks where we said, Lord, if this isn’t supposed to be just, let us know this isn’t going to happen, but it would always go to the next phase and go there, say that took about three years from, back of the napkin, can we do it too?
Signing on the line and taking delivery of half a million dollar machine at the time for me. And that was the birth of Texas metal printing, LLC. Yep. Yeah. Excellent. Wow. And it was a new year’s Eve 2014. We wrote the PO for that first printer and yeah I ran the machine on nights and weekends, maintain my day job. So I told my employer let me know. I just want to tell me first because I’m signing the loan next week and they want to know, they want to know if I have a job or not. So excellent. Excellent. So did that for three years, nights and weekends only tried to get sales where I could, but that’s hard or after hours and stuff.
And over those three years, We had two children. So we went from zero to two and by year three, . It became abundantly clear that I needed to leave my day job and just really go all in on metal printing and and make a go of it.
And so that’s what we did. We did. Yeah. Yeah. It’s one of those places where you wake up and, it was April 1st, April fool’s day. And first day I woke up without a job, I was my own guy and that’s a neat, different feeling full of joy and terror .
Fantastic Brandon. Yeah, I remember my first introduction to 3d printing was a guy that in the local area around Detroit here who had an EOS machine, the selective laser centering, and he also did bronze stainless and a tool steel. He actually bought it for mold industry. He would make inserts complete out of his 3d printer and inserted into the mold.
So to circle back to your story. So you were just told us that you went out on your own, made this big leap signing on new year’s day. And then what was it? Was it two or three years later? You said it was April fool’s day. You were taking a look at, you were finally okay.
Unemployed is the word you put, self-employed a lot of them are the same, I think in Webster’s dictionary, they’re the synonymous each other. But yeah. So you found yourself self-employed Texas metal printing and you had this family at home that have all the same habits with my family.
They like to eat and they like to have a roof over their head and they liked to be clothed. So you had to figure out how to provide that. Yeah. They want me around every once in a while for that stuff too. That’s an added bonus. That’s not always the case for everybody, but it’s an added bonus if they liked dad to bearound.
So how did you manage that? How did you manage this, these incredible challenges? Yeah. Is that like with anything else, man? W we prayed a lot about where to go with the direction of the company. Now that we’re here, God, and I followed you away from the day job, where do we go now?
Type thing. And begin to look at 3d printing metal, 3d printing. Usually doesn’t stand alone on its own. It can in some niche applications, but a lot of times you’re using EDM machine, you’re using a milling machine, you’re drilling a hole or you’re polishing Sandy and grind something added to the additive process.
Usually. And at the time I had only just the one printer and I was outsourcing a lot of machine work. And so I, start to talk to him wife. Okay. If we’re in on this all together, what’s one of the, we might need to buy an UPM machine or, maybe a couple of CNC machines.
And get more capability under our roof. Now that, we need to make some more money here and there instead of just I just dropped my camera. Yeah. Hopefully it’s just the camera now. Now we’ve sealed the deal over amateurs. All right. Anyway, start talking about that.
And also being open to, we had some large clients who were excited about what we were doing and was willing to consider a a out, acquisition type situation. And put it in God’s hands. All right. Got you. Tell me, this is what we’re open to. This is what we’re willing to do.
Whichever way comes about that’s, what we’ll do with. And ally power group came along and we did some sample prints for them. They were really happy with the samples we provided, some proof of concept for some of the applications that they had. They wanted to get into additive manufacturing.
I didn’t have any equipment at the time, but didn’t have any personnel dedicated to it at the time, but saw it as an a technology they wanted to add to their arsenal. They’re a world leader in gas, turbine repair. So they do a lot of welding, a lot of machining, a lot of heat treating for the gas turbine industry.
And lots of opportunities there for additive manufacturing. And so we hit it off. We really got along and they liked me and I liked them. And so as part of their, capital expense into. Delving off into additive was the acquisition of Texas metal printing wholly. So they got our customer base, they got our equipment and my very limited expertise in additive.
But I did have, four years.
Challenges that you only get to experience once you’re actually printing your own parts, and I think that’s like with anything else, you buy a CNC machine. Oh, that’s fantastic. Make a part on it. That’s a whole nother situation, you’ve got to get your tooling and your programming and all that.
And so the The experience that I brought was one of the attractive things for ally group. So I’ve been with working with them hand in hand for since December of 19 at the close of 19 is when they. They bought our equipment and then due to COVID, we didn’t move anything until July of 2020.
So over the course of the first half of 2020, they bought an additional 3d printer. So two 3d printers in house now, and then over the course of 2020 altogether, we moved them in, got them all set up. And, or making parts, for for clients as well as, internal demands for gastro.
Yeah. And I guess we didn’t cover it in the bio, but you were in the Houston, Texas area, correct? That’s right. Yep. Yep. I like power groups on the North side and I’ve been in the Houston area for, since 2000. Gotcha. And and I know we’ve talked a little bit of course we have to be sensitive on this podcast as a public thing.
So we can’t really mention customers or necessarily projects. But I do remember in some of the conversations with you, when I found out you were in the Texas area, there was a A certain private space company. That’s that’s got its hands in Texas. And and you started talking about both in your previous life doing a lot of the plate cutting and the machining at the, at your family business.
I don’t know if you’re still doing that with additive. I know your propriety, your own, not an operating now with allied. So I don’t know how many outside customers you still serve, but maybe talk about that a little bit. Yeah. The the. Customer service, man. Some of the best clients you pick up are at five Oh five on a Friday.
When everybody else has decided that they’re good, they don’t need to work, and you take that phone call and you’re like, What, and they come up with this, impossible, nearly impossible, but you can probably pull it off type tasks. And you hit that task out of the out, you hit a home, run on it.
And next thing you know, you’re buried with good work from a good customer.
You’re getting a phone call. It’s not random, right? . You’ve proven yourself in some way or form in industry to be the guy that we got, someone’s got an issue. We gotta call this guy and get this thing solved. And so it’s good for me to hear, like-minded people who, answered the phone.
So you answered the phone for the guy and then they give you the crazy impossible man. My team always last. So I get Text messages at 10 30 on Friday night or Saturday night. And it’s typically some. Screenshot of a model of a part and some director or VP at some company says, Hey, is this possible?
My team says this isn’t possible now. And they’re, they’ve got their finger pointing at a hole inside around side. And and and so I’ll text them back. It sounds tough, and they say, yeah, but you can do it right.
Why are you asking me at 10 30? And that’s what my team always says. Monday morning, we have our leadership meeting. We power in it and they always say to me, all right, What texts did you get over the weekend? What are we working on this week? And I say this guy’s got this, inside, outside, around side thing.
And so we, we kinda laugh because it’s the same deal. . So yeah as we get back in there again, I know our time’s running up a little bit, but. Sounds like you’ve had quite the gamut of 3d printing. And I want to look at I, again, knowing you have to be sensitive to the types of things you’re actually doing.
Can you talk about the different uses of 3d printing, maybe some of the failures you’ve experienced on how to fix that. Can you look at some of those possibilities for us? Yeah, sure. The as far as applications We’ve had downhole drilling applications, in the field, not prototype.
At the time contributed to, setting some records for fuel, this tool did this thing much faster than the competition type thing and 3d printing. Additive metal was. The way to do it like that’s the way to make that part that did that thing that helped the guys set the record, to be a part of that is awesome.
I can never shout it from the rooftops or use it for any advertising, which is frustrating. But but it’s cool. It’s cool. And it really that one project kept the lights on for us early on. So it’s awesome. It’s awesome. That’s, and that’s Houston, Texas oil, is very critical to manufacturing around here.
But then we’ve done some cool prototype stuff. One client used to, always on fire Hey, we’ve got this presentation next week. We got this new design for a. Some sort of concrete application, I, can you print this up? Yeah, sure. And no idea what it did. Usually we don’t know what it is, you, we get a file dumped in our lap and it’s like, Hey, I need one of these.
And we don’t really get to participate much in the, what it does. It’s the nature of, if it’s a prototype, it’s already a shush. You don’t really know where it’s going to go. As a lot of times we see stuff that looks cool, but we have no idea. You could be a shoe horn. We wouldn’t know.
But then we do get a lot of exposure to aerospace, rocket stuff. And that that’s fun, there’s, there, there are some very creative engineers out there that come up with unique. Geometry that is challenging to say the least. And then even here internally, I like our group got a lot of components that are historically, legacy parts would be castings to start off as a casting, then they have to go to machine and do some machining features. Then they’ve got some EDM features and then Then we got to do some buffing, polishing, whatever. And so castings were always a delay. They weren’t perfect when they came in and you had to address them, deal with them. They wait forever before they show up. And then machining this stuff.
A lot of the gas turbine stuff is nickel, cobalt, Chrome, not aluminum. For machining applications. And so machining them is not trivial, it’s it may not be difficult, but it beats up your tools, it takes time. And so we took this one component that had a brazing machine EDM application, and we turned it to a single off the printer application where to be a hundred percent, there’s one edge on the bottom side where the support material is that has to be dusted on a mill. But it’s like instead of, eight hours in the shop, 30 minutes in the shop, drastically reduce the labor. And the, obviously the printing machine doesn’t care if it’s seven o’clock on Friday night or Christmas day or whatever, as long as it was set up in advance properly and all that it’s doing its thing.
And so the labor hours are shut down on that. And then these really small holes. That went from one small hole and then taper to a big hole on the other end, just a unique feature that was challenging with EDS and certain types of drills and stuff. That it’s one on the printer, more or less, with a finished pass on the middle.
And she’s exciting to see that stuff cause that’s a complex part, a high value part that Economically it makes sense to 3d print it, which has been a big challenge for additive is to take a legacy part and go we’ve already got all that figured out.
But there, there are situations where it does make sense. Usually it’s your smaller parts, for us size the stuff, the size of our hand or something that. Cannot be done another way, like a rocket engine
, what would you consider the most complicated either material or part you’ve ever had to do?
So far.
We did an, it, it was a combustion chamber of sorts. It was cobalt Chrome material, which we’ve had a lot of good luck with printing, difficult to machine, but it’s good for printing. But man, it just had this crazy geometry inside. There was these like tubular kind of funnel. Thanks. So unsupported angles and supported overhang which has always got more stress.
And it was a, there was a lot of stuff going on there that, it was just really challenging. And we had some problems we had to print it three or four times and it was each bill was a six day build. So we would get four days in and go. Start it over, we gotta change this, we gotta change that.
And that’s the agony with 3d printing is when you scrap a high investment build that has multiple days on it. So that, that leads to the next thing is know, how do you quote a one-piece job that you’re going to print that’s never been made before? Is that really a challenge for you as well?
Yeah, of course. Once these are hard for any process, it doesn’t matter if it’s 3d printing, machining, whatever it is. A onesy is difficult, especially if it’s complicated, which is why it lands in our lap in the first place. If it was easy, it would’ve gone somewhere else. But the, I think with 20 years of experience, hopefully by now, I have learned to calculate for Or at least do a best guess at the factors.
And take an approach of, okay, will we know it’s going to consume this much powder? Let’s say we’re it’s a tricky part. Maybe we’re going to scrap it twice, throw a number on that. We’re not going to scrap it 10 times. If we’re going to scrap it twice, we’re going to tell the customer something else that has to change.
And then a lot of the times to be candid, I’ll tell the customer upfront. When I quote it, I reserve the right to cancel this job. This is a hard part. We’re going to talk about it. We’re going to meet, I’m going to show you what we’re up against here. We can talk about design changes, but at the end of the day, this technology, our experience is limited and we’ll give it a go.
We reserve the right to punt it back and say, Hey, you know what, this isn’t, you’re not winning and we’re not winning. And if nobody’s winning, we’re going to move on. And and out of curiosity, how often does that happen? Can you count on one hand or. It came really close on the part that I’m telling you about really close that job started before Texas metal printing got acquired.
So this was October of 19 and I delivered it three weeks ago. All the 2020 and in the 21, before I delivered that part, it was hard. It was a tough part, man. They knew there was nobody else was going to stick it out like that sticktuitiveness thing. Like we. Communicated the whole way. Like we tried again and we wrecked again and here’s what we’re going to do to try to fix it.
And so that’s where, it’s easy to, I could have easily punted it back, and said, Hey, you know what? We’ve got to, I’ll put it, if we even try to run this part, here’s our nonrefundable X amount. If we put it up and we hit go, we’re going to get paid this and then, okay.
We basically get to decide if we’re going to go forward or not, because this part, now this is the one instance where I came close to having to bail out because it was so hard. It hardly ever comes up in conversation, but it gives me the confidence going in going look. And if I don’t like it, I’ll kick it back.
Like it’s a hard part. We’re going to talk to these engineers. We’re going to, we’re going to make it very clear that this is a very difficult thing to do. And we’re going to ask for their help, Hey, if you just take this little feature right here, what if we, blah, blah, blah, around this corner, make this radius bigger, smaller do you have to have this, and things that are so challenging to us to go, Oh yeah, we can move that.
No problem. And it’s just being able to communicate that and work through it and go, man. That makes my life a lot easier. That’s really good to know what is the strangest thing you’ve been asked to print?
So far?
So there was a surgical tool that spreads out the. Gaps in your disk. This is a, this is out there on the market, but it’s made traditionally, and we were had an inquiry to make a version of that. It just, that was like weird. And terrifying and and I have a very close personal friend of mine who was involved in that he has back problems and he’s dude, I don’t ever want to see one of those ever again.
Cause it looked like this. Torture device, man, that just like a spring loaded kind of thing, but just you stick it in your spread and you do your thing. And I was like, Oh, that’s funny. That’s funny. So this last section I want to jump to, and since I got you here last week I like to pull up two or three current events and see how different people are using 3d printing and additive in the industry today.
Last week we actually brought up an article that KFC is 3d printing their chicken nuggets. Very interesting article. We have a LinkedIn, you can see it, but they’re actually, it’s an all plant-based chicken nugget and they’re 3d printing it. And then we also saw where researchers are using the 3d printing for.
COVID testing, they’re actually printing human organs and everything’s there. They’re skipping the the standard three to 10 year processes for testing medicine to help in COVID by using 3d printing. So there was a couple interesting things last week. This week. I shared with you. They’re 3d printing, new skin to help burn victims.
Again, guy manufacturing, guys like you and I, this is different stuff, but science day science daily.com talks about a new handheld 3d printer that deposits sheets of skin to cover large burn wounds. And it’s bio ink can accelerate the healing process device developed by a team of researchers at the university of Toronto engineering and Sunnybrook hospital again, we’ve got a link there, but that’s pretty interesting. Hey, yeah. It brings me back anything medical, a flashback.
I don’t know if you remember, there’s some crazy anatomy episode about three or four years ago. Probably three years ago. Where 3d printing was real big and they needed a sternum for this patient. And so they found a way to print one out of, I think it was titanium , the the next interesting thing.
And you commented on this when I shared it with you is Th the article says, would you buy a 3d printed house? So in on Bob vila.com, there’s an article that asked the question, would you buy a 3d printed house? It says, take a peek inside the first of its kind to hit the real estate market. The same technology used in small 3d printers can print a real house.
The first 3d printed home is already on the multi list. Three-dimensional printing. Isn’t just for little things. Sq 4d, which they pronounce S squared is a New York construction company using patent pending 3d technology known as the autonomous robotic construction system or arcs to print houses onsite.
So the basics behind 3d printing at home. Nearly identical to those using 3d printers to create other items took just 48 hours. Okay. Of concrete extrusion over eight days to complete the entire frame. That’s amazing to me. Making a house, you and I are talking about gears and you can jump combustion chamber and medical tools, but a concrete house. That sounds pretty cool.
Yeah, man, I real estate kinda got me into 3d printing and now it’s like 3d printing could help, They encouraged me to do more in real estate.
For years. And so the challenge here is affordable housing. To find a place to live is extremely challenging because everything’s so expensive. And so that’s where I get excited about this. And there’s another one that’s based out of Austin, Texas that they got a house built and permitted in the city of Austin was, has strict standards.
It’s all about time and materials. If you can drive down the time and the materials to build a house, you’re going to have a more affordable house and the 3d printing can help do that, man. That’s that’s cool.
So this is from 3d print.com.
Again, a full link to the article on our page, 3d from nothing.com. It says an Indian space startup. I’m going to struggle with that name, but Agnico cosmos has developed and tested test fired a fully 3d printed rocket engine produced as a single component in one run higher stage.
Semi cryogenic liquid propulsion engine called the Ang Anglo net even though several space agencies and companies are using additive manufacturing or am to churn out rocket parts and rocket engines, most notably space X relativity space and NASA.
Anglical claims that the England that is the first single-piece 3d printed rocket engine to pass a fire test successfully Igniters injectors, cooling channels, mounts manifolds for the fuel oxygen and nozzle are just a few of the hundreds of components that go into making a rocket engine. Moreover, most of these are incredibly complex geometries.
However, am additive manufacturing is helping to reduce the lead time and the costs that go into making this engine. So to me, that.
That’s pretty cool. Everybody’s going to space now. So yeah. Yeah, I don’t know what’s out there. There must be something I guess there’s a reason, I guess there’s something going on up there that we need to check out. And keeps a lot of people up there, which I can, that’s exciting.
I’ve gotten a good authority. There’s no, COVID on the moon. So they’ve not one of the few places that it is I think there’s still a mass policy, but it doesn’t have to do with COVID.
Current Events
Tom: This is the part of the show where I pull up some current events or current articles where 3D printing is being used in the world today. Last episode we discussed how KFC is 3D printing chicken nuggets, Israel is 3D printing the perfect Steak! And researchers are using 3D printing to assist in Covid testing.
This week we have:
3D printing of new skin can help burn victims!
ScienceDaily.com talks about “A new handheld 3D printer can deposit sheets of skin to cover large burn wounds — and its “bio ink” can accelerate the healing process.
The device, developed by a team of researchers from the University of Toronto Engineering and Sunnybrook Hospital, covers wounds with a uniform sheet of biomaterial, stripe by stripe.
The bio ink dispensed by the roller is composed of mesenchymal stroma cells (MSCs) — stem cells that differentiate into specialized cell types depending on their environment. In this case, the MSC material promotes skin regeneration and reduces scarring.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200204163652.htm
Would You Buy a 3D-Printed House?
BobVilla.com has an article that asks the question: Would you buy a 3D printed house?
“Take a Peek Inside the First of Its Kind to Hit the Real Estate Market
The same technology used in small 3D printers can print a real house—and the first 3D home is already on the multi-list.
Three-dimensional printing isn’t just for little things—SQ4D, pronounced “S-squared,” a New York construction company, uses patent-pending 3D technology, known as Autonomous Robotic Construction System (ARCS), to print houses on-site. Now, the company’s first full-size spec house is on the market, and it looks a lot like a traditional house. Check out their 3-bedroom, 2-bath house in Riverhead, New York, and keep reading to find out more about this new type of construction.
How It Works
The basics behind printing 3D homes are nearly identical to those 3D printers use to create other items. Through the use of computer numerical control (CNC), a large concrete extrusion machine carefully follows paths designated for interior and exterior walls, depositing uniform layers of semi-solid concrete that cure to form a structurally sound frame. Each house is meticulously engineered to meet building codes. The company inputs a home’s architectural plans into its computer and then manually mixes and feeds concrete into the extrusion machine. The home in Riverhead took just 48 hours of concrete extrusion over eight days to complete the frame.”
https://www.bobvila.com/articles/first-3d-printed-house-for-sale/
First single-printed Rocket engine!
3Dprint.com says that “Indian space startup AgniKul Cosmos has developed and test-fired a fully 3D printed rocket engine. Produced as a single component in one run, the higher stage semi-cryogenic liquid propulsion engine called Agnilet was built to support its orbital-class launch vehicle Agnibaan. Even though several space agencies and companies are using additive manufacturing (AM) to churn out rocket parts and engines – most notably SpaceX, Relativity Space, and NASA –, AngiKul claims Agnilet is the first single-piece 3D printed rocket engine to pass a fire test successfully.
Igniters, injectors, cooling channels, mounts, manifolds for fuel and oxygen, and nozzle are just a few of the hundreds of components that go into making a rocket engine. Moreover, most of these are incredibly complex geometries that traditionally require several conventional fabrication techniques and machining processes, such as welding, brazing, and drilling, to create a flight-worthy engine. However, AM is helping reduce the lead time and costs that go into making a rocket engine.”
CLOSING
As we close this episode, we want to keep these episodes short and packed full of information. If you need anything from us please go to the website, 3dfromnothing.com
Hey Brandon, I really appreciate you spending the time with us today. It’s so good pleasure to talk to you.
Yeah, and I really wish you the best. Do you want to give our listeners here a way that they can get ahold of you? What’s the best place they can go to, to find you. Yeah, me personally, I’m on LinkedIn. And then TMP3d.com will help you if you’re interested in generating an RQ there or allied pg.com.
That’s ally powered group’s website which is guest turbine repair. But yeah man, thanks. This is fun. I wish you the best and I hope it’s a blessing for everybody. Absolutely. Thanks again for your time today. All right, man. Have a good one.
You will find all sorts of information and how to contact us. And of course, the top corner says “get a quick quote”. We would be glad to help you out and see if we can get your project in your hands faster and better than anyone else.