I like "old man emu's' reply baby boomer, HA ! Myself, I'm so old, I can remember when the dead sea was just getting sick. HA ! Bradley C. Fudge, little tiny hole in New Mexico, nobody, nothing around, might as well print something.

I was a tool and die maker for what seemed like forever, I have worked in most every aspect of manufacturing, including manufacturing guns, model making, props for movies, lost wax casting, etc., etc.,.......then I became disabled. Now I get so bored I have to find something to do, so I tinker, I like to tinker where nobody else has gone, or at least not much is known. That becomes expensive. I have always had expensive tastes. So even though my company looks like a for profit company, it seldom actually makes any. I'm not complaining, I wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't messing with this stuff.

There is a LOT of room for advancement, I can see so many things that can be done, with very little expense. It would be very easy to print directly from pellets, a person could make a machine with quick change tool heads, so you could have multi color/material, switch to engraver, switch to wax cutting mill, switch to PCB drill, etc. It is not practical to use a printer to cut metal though, the rigidity needed is too high.

So as Eddie says, 3D printing is the future.