Has anyone tried 3d printing sub rail extensions? I know I know in a world where tradition is everything this may be met with a lot of fire. Lol the best mechanics I've read a lot from on these forums have said, it's just wood to secure the extra cushion to. With today's 3d printing tech you could use just about any material and have dimensional accuracy as good, if not better than wood working tools. I'm actually considering experimenting with this on my personal table the next time I do cushions.
Since we are talking about no more than half an inch and it's just a way to glue the rubber to the rail, I don't see why it couldn't be done. Obviously plastic like PLA is too brittle and has too low of a melting point. Materials like petg, abs, asa should be plenty strong enough and won't warp with heat. Could try engineering filament like polycarbonate but honestly, seems like petg would be perfect as long as table isn't in a garage or gonna be in severe heat.
The benefit would be that could model it so that current miter angle and down angle would perfectly match on subrail. Then the miter angle and down angle with new pocket width could be modeled on other side. Can get dimensional accuracy within .1%. The only downside I see is securing it to the wood but could honestly model pins, or fastening locations into the design. Could glue it just as easily as wood. I genuinely don't think the sound, feel or anything would be affected at all since its less than 1/2" and there are so many plastic/composite options available for residential printers. Hell, if you wanted to could get wood impregnated plastics. Maybe I'm off but seems like someone has to have tried it or thought about it. I have all the tools needed to do subrail extensions and a fair amount of experience with those tools. Most don't though. Seems like 3d printing with today's machines would be much easier, as just as good, potentially more accurate, as making them out of wood. Thought?
Since we are talking about no more than half an inch and it's just a way to glue the rubber to the rail, I don't see why it couldn't be done. Obviously plastic like PLA is too brittle and has too low of a melting point. Materials like petg, abs, asa should be plenty strong enough and won't warp with heat. Could try engineering filament like polycarbonate but honestly, seems like petg would be perfect as long as table isn't in a garage or gonna be in severe heat.
The benefit would be that could model it so that current miter angle and down angle would perfectly match on subrail. Then the miter angle and down angle with new pocket width could be modeled on other side. Can get dimensional accuracy within .1%. The only downside I see is securing it to the wood but could honestly model pins, or fastening locations into the design. Could glue it just as easily as wood. I genuinely don't think the sound, feel or anything would be affected at all since its less than 1/2" and there are so many plastic/composite options available for residential printers. Hell, if you wanted to could get wood impregnated plastics. Maybe I'm off but seems like someone has to have tried it or thought about it. I have all the tools needed to do subrail extensions and a fair amount of experience with those tools. Most don't though. Seems like 3d printing with today's machines would be much easier, as just as good, potentially more accurate, as making them out of wood. Thought?
