Caleb sez, "The Department of Defense ordered that 3d printed gun removed from the Internet. That didn't work out. You can still download it and print it.
I did, and found that the files are a mess and not really functional. I also took a cool timelapse video of the printing."
1. the scale on the individual files was way off.
I suspect this has something to do with the printer it was designed for. It seemed very close to being 1 inch = 1 mm. Not a completely uncommon problem. Manually resizing got some files to look right, but I found many simply wouldn't resize.
2. Almost every single item had errors.
If you've done 3d printing, you've found that a model can have all kinds of issues that will stop it from printing correctly. I found every single item for the gun had errors. I actually learned a lot about how to repair non-manifold items from this exercise, so it was good in the end.
Some items, like the hammer and the hammer springs simply would not print. I ran them through systems to repair them and fix errors. It would say that everything was fixed, but when I tried to "slice" them for printing, the software would crash. This means that my gun is incomplete. It has no hammer. Not really that big of a deal to me.
Timelapse of the 3d printed gun being printed.
(Thanks, Caleb)
