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Various glass objects created with a 3-D printer. Credit: Group for Complex Materials =================================================================== ETH researchers used a 3-D printing process to produce complex and highly porous glass objects. The basis for this is a special resin that can be cured with UV light. Producing glass objects using 3-D printing is not easy. Only a few groups of researchers around the world have attempted to produce glass using additive methods. Some have made objects by printing molten glass, but the disadvantage is that this requires extremely high temperatures and heat-resistant equipment. Others have used powdered ceramic particles that can be...

When your favorite gadget of the future breaks, you might select a replacement model online, download its design file and make a true 3-D replacement on your home printer.< >More importantly, prices for 3-D printing machines have been falling rapidly, reaching $20,000, and the day is foreseeable when they will fall below $1,000 and become home appliances, says Phil Anderson of the School of Theoretical and Applied Science at Ramapo College in New Jersey. The results, he warned, could be economically "disruptive." "If you can make what you need in your own home quickly, then manufacturers become designers, with no...

FSB Magazine) -- After midnight, it's dark and nearly silent in the Klock Werks Kustom Cycles shop (kustomcycles.com) in Mitchell, S.D. The only sound is the low hum emanating from a box that looks like a cross between a dormitory fridge and a Xerox machine. Behind a compartment of clear glass, the device - a Stratasys Prodigy 3-D printer - is constructing a complex shape, all curves and spaces, out of plastic. When he arrives at his shop in the morning, Brian Klock strolls over to the printer and pops open the glass compartment. Carefully breaking away the supports, he...

An unmanned aircraft made from "printed" parts rather than traditional machine-tooled components has been unveiled at the Farnborough Air Show, UK. Developed at Lockheed Martin's top-secret "Skunk Works" research facility in Palmdale, California, US, the Polecat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a 28-metre flying wing, weighing four tonnes. It was designed in part to test cheaper manufacturing technologies. The Skunk Works is no stranger to advanced technology: its successful designs include the ultra-high-altitude U2 spyplane, the SR71 Blackbird - a spyplane which can travel at more than three times the speed of sound - and the radar-invisible F117 stealth fighter....