On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 12:39:03 +0000 (UTC), "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
wrote:

life imitates life wrote:
Printing hell! You can "print" hard 3D prototypes now.

But according to the dumbass, buying such a machine will surely take
your company down.

I don't know to whom you refer, but it could be thought that way. (just
a stretch, not a position I'm supporting)

Let's go back to the small company with designers and engineers and a bunch
of people (titles irrelevant) who build 3d models of things. If you buy one
of the machines, the lower skilled model/prototype makers will be replaced
by it.

NO. The company get a prot-type without having to pay the machine shop
a tooling charge. The model maker IS your designer, and his position
remains. Most companies do not have their own machine shops.

This leads to the higher skilled (and older) makers retiring and leaving the
company, assuming they stay around that long. As the devices get better,
which they will over time, the more skilled makes they can replace.

Grasping at straws. We advance as we advance, and the skilled craftsmen
remain and skills get handed down. Why do you think a YF-22 costs $230M?

In some ways it's sad, the son of a friend of mine took a course to run
a CNC device. Twenty years ago he would have been called an operator, now
his title is engineer.

Oh boy. I studied them at ten years old back in 1970. They call these
things paradigm shifts. Computer controls allow precision machinists to
precisely machine. **** and moan machinists fall away as chaff. Time
and progress marches on.