Hackaday: The other day I saw a plastic part that was so beautiful that I had to look twice to realize it hadn’t been cast — and no, it didn’t come out of a Stratysys or anything, just a 3D printer that probably cost $1,500. It struck me that someone who had paid an artisan to make a mold and cast that part might end up spending the same amount as that 3D printer. It also struck me that the little guys are starting to catch up with the big guys.
3 comments:
This article I think is really inspiring and true especially when it comes to the world of technical theatre. Things have never been easier to obtain and to fabricate in house as they are today with things like CNC machining as well as 3D printing and the ability to get something custom made quickly and relatively inexpensive is an amazing resources for theatre's of varying sizes not just the big Broadway productions. Along with the ability to share and open source different products the ability to find and make a part or component for something your looking for is easier then ever. Technical theatre is made up of a bunch of techniques and things that other industries use and repurposing them for our own devices. But now we finally have the ability to create our own things entirely and its not so astronomically expensive that it is out of the question for most shops. Now don't get me wrong it's still limited both in what it can do and time(the ultimate enemy) but almost anyone can do it now which is an amazing thing.
There is no doubt that CNC has begun to take over the fabrication world. You just can’t beat the quality of something that was made by a machine. The amazing thing to me is how much of a time saver it is. During my summer job, I was constantly 3D printing something and the great part was I could just let it run overnight and it would be done the next morning. For me, that is still unbelievable. This has also changed the way people do things as well. Especially in the theatrical world designers have been able to be more adventurous and more take it away from the more basic standard scenery. Another nice thing that this article mentions is how accessible the technology has become. In the article, the author mentions how a few years ago the thought of 3D printing was a myth or just out of your budget. If anything this makes me curious about what is to come and the improvements that will be made.
This continued push to grow as a shop for more and more theatres is to get CNC and being able to produce or machine their own parts. This drive will have several effects. First, it will expand the capabilities of the traditional scene shops ability to quickly produce more complex shapes. Second, it will increase the need for more technically skilled labor in the production process of these items, trained labor. Third, it will hopefully require advances in the field and push the quality of the professional fabricators to speed up and keep on top of the changing industry. However, this could also lead to unnecessary complication and reliance on CNC for things that could be done in other ways. This could lead to a loss of knowledge and tool working that is key to have a balance between the two. If you aren’t trained how to do it without all this complex fabrication then you won’t know how to when you don’t have it and that will happen someday, all things break.
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