tl;dr: It's totally possible to print titanium bicycle parts, but the business model needs a bit more work still.
For reference, this is the thread from my last blog post on the subject:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9216474
Cheers, Spencer Wright
If not, is the next step to leverage the additive process to produce a unique design? Meshes, hallows, etc.?
That said, this design is very much NOT optimal, and there's a lot I can do to tune it for the process. I'm working on that more in the coming months; first I needed to 1) prove that the process could produce a functional part, and 2) get access to more advanced design software (topology optimization + lattice structure generation). Stay tuned!
You said that you can lower the cost 25-40% by doubling layer thickness. From that I infer that the printing time is a large part of the total cost?
I think you'd want to print it in a sort of collapsed/"wadded-up" form, to reduced the print size and to insure you can get enough separation between the links that they don't bind together. You'd need some pretty fancy algorithms to translate the client's measurements into a wad of printed mail that will be the right shape/size when spread out, but once you got that down you could just plug in the numbers and watch it go. If you could get the price down to something decent, I think you'd get a lot of business from SCAdians/fantasy fans/etc.
If the labor cost is lower that would be a win, but also the weight of the gloves must be pretty high and tiring over time (which is why illegally they mostly spent their time on the shelf instead of on hands, although they would occasionally wear them). So if 3d printing could be lighter...
Drop my a line (email in my profile) if you want to talk more about mail manufacturing. It's on my project bucket list.
post bike kits to people for them to assemble.
that way the part would be 3d print more rapidly.
