make your own parts

Won't open!

I went to NBC.com and did a search. There is nothing on their website with the word widgets.

I just watched it yesterday,they must have took it down,it was a machine in Jay Lenos garage they set up,it would scan a part  and duplicate it,great for making obsolete parts,sorry the link doesn't work today guys,thought it would have been a cool thing for you guys to look at

High strength plastic protyping machine?  Where it puts little dabs of molten plastic down building it up layer by layer.  We use them at work for R&D.  They stand up to quite some abuse.  Last on I saw was a water pump housing, now remember these are 3500hp engines so its not a little dinky thing but weights 150+lbs in cast iron.   You can see coolant flow through it(sort of) and even see cavitation issues and such. 

We has some rods done with them as well, weights about 5lbs compared to 54lbs in forged steel.  Makes it easy to visualize and set up production machinery/jigs/fixtures when you can actually hold a prototype in your hands before producing the real thing in iron.  Of course unlike the water pump housing, you cant actually use the protoype rod in the engine.  While its quite durable for plastic, its not going to survive the pressure of 200hp+ per cylinder. 

Rogers, Most CNC machines can do what your talking about with a a touch probe.  there is a ruby tipped sensor that mounts in the spindle and touches off the part in a grid pattern. Then load some rough stock and proper tools and machine away.  It is good for many parts but complex cast pieces with internal shaped passages are difficult/impossible with this method.  The prototyping machine such as shown in Jay Lenos shop makes it possible then you can use the prototype as a pattern for a new casting.  

Neat Technology! Our son-in-law heads the rapid prototyping divison of FlowServe and they use this for making patterns for casting parts.