Need prosthetic front paws for border collie foster

[RobH2]

Yea, I think so. I think a $200-300 would be sufficient. It depends on how handy your are and how much you feel like jumping in and just figuring it out. Filament is inexpensive. It might take two rolls. That's about $90. Cloth, webbing, thread, padding, etc., is not too expensive. Maybe that's $75 or so. Casting material might be $50 and plaster is dirt cheap, say $10. There will be some postage and a few other things, let's call that $75. So adding that up we have, wow, oddly enough, exactly $300. I'd rely on you to be handy and to be able to cut, stitch and mock up harnesses, supports and other aspects. We'd have to figure out how to do it but that's all just time. The materials aren't crazy expensive. FYI, I watched another doggy prosthetic video and YouTube and they talk about having raised $6000 to have a company in Denver make legs. So you know it costs more than that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh1XOBp6rs4 and http://www.orthopets.com/

The thing about 3d printing is that the materials are cheap. It's the design effort to create parts to print that is expensive. The 3d printer is just a tool and it has allowed mere mortals like you and me to make cool stuff that before would have been financially impossible. I guess you could go to China and get a plastics company to make you "one" phone case but it would probably cost $10K for the tooling and setup and molding of that "one" case. With a 3d printer I can print one in about two hours for less than a dollar. But, that printer can't print anything unless someone tells it what to do. If I can't find a phone case model on the web I have to make one. And, good 3d guys charge about $150 per hour to model stuff. You'd spend about 3 hours on that case so there is $450 just to get to the point that you can print it for less than a dollar. You are better off just buying one from Amazon. Buy a $15 hammer and give it to a master carpenter and see what he can do with it. Give it a 5-year old and see what he can do. So yes, while 3d printing is inexpensive on some level, it still costs something. The press does a terrible job making that distinction.

So, I have the printer, I'm willing to invest my time doing 3d work and design, I just can't do it all because I'm not there, wherever you are. Could you waste money and wind up with nothing, sure, that's always possible? But I'd bet we come up with something useful. It's not brain surgery. It's physics and some craftiness.

I'm very willing to donate my design skills, time and printer if you want to pursue this. I'll help you along the whole way as much as I can. You'll have to be the carpenter on that end though. It might take a few passes but I think we can pull it off if you want to try.