AM So Far: A Conversation on 10 Years of Covering Additive Manufacturing: AM Radio #11A

Additive Manufacturing Media began in 2012 as a supplement to two well-established industry publications. Ten years in, this media brand now includes a stand-alone magazine, multiple video series, a conference, and our podcast AM Radio. Stephanie Hendrixson has worked with me on covering AM and building out this range of outlets through much of the past decade. On the occasion of the brand’s 10-year anniversary, she and I met in the podcast studio to have a conversation about how far we have come — and about the ways that additive manufacturing technology and adoption have both changed and not changed over time.

        

Transcript

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Welcome to AM Radio, the show where we tune into what’s really going on in additive manufacturing. I’m Stephanie Hendrixson. And you might know that this podcast is produced by a brand called Additive Manufacturing Media. 2022 is the 10-year anniversary of our publication. So in this podcast, I talk with Pete Zelinski, and we’re going to take a look back at the last decade in additive manufacturing both the brand and the technology plus give her predictions for the next 10 years. That's all coming up on AM Radio.

Stephanie Hendrixson

This episode of The AM Radio podcast is brought to you by PTXPO, the show for North American plastics professionals. Join Additive Manufacturing Media and sister brand Plastics Technology for the first ever edition of this event in March of 2022. Find more information at PlasticsTechnologyExpo.com.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

I’m Stephanie Hendrixson. Welcome to this episode of AM Radio. I have here in the studio with me Pete Zelinski, our editor in chief. Hi, Pete.

Peter Zelinski 

Hi, Stephanie.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

So, 2022 is the 10 year anniversary of this brand that we’re a part of, Additive Manufacturing. And I thought that in this episode, we could just sort of start with a look back and just talk about why this publication exists. How we got here. Do you want to kind of take it away? Like, where did where did all this begin?

Peter Zelinski 

Yeah, it’s right, February 2022, marks the 10-year anniversary. And we started as a publication, right. And we started as a tiny, tiny publication, a supplement to a couple of established magazines within Gardner Business Media, Modern Machine Shop and MoldMaking Technology. And in the very beginning, we were producing this quarterly supplement. It was me and it was the editor in chief of our moldmaking brand, Christina Fuges (Hey, Christina) working on it together. And that supplement a few years out, we discovered we needed more than that. And it became a standalone publication in the beginning and the platform of a standalone media brand. And, and I think that has been the ongoing theme of this experience, is that we’ve tried to give what looked like significant attention to what’s happening in additive manufacturing. And it kept on proving to be not significant enough. Like, it seemed like a big deal that we were adding this quarterly, like, external polybagged supplement to our publications to talk about additive, but additive is so big, and so sweeping and changing so much, and there’s so many opportunities there that was kind of paltry compared to what we really needed to do to serve the space, the subject matter, this, this change,

Stephanie Hendrixson 

There’s a point that you’re making that I want to just stop and draw a circle around. Like, so Additive Manufacturing Media, the brand is not this isolated thing, right? We sprang out of this company with almost 100-year history, Gardner Business Media, in publishing media about manufacturing. And at the time that additive manufacturing became that supplement, like it was very much a print focused organization. And I think that was true kind of across the board. We had websites, we were doing digital stuff, but the production of these magazines was really the focus. And so it seemed like a really natural jump, I think maybe at that time to just add another print component to deal with additive manufacturing. And then as you’re describing, we pretty soon found that that was a little bit too limited for what we were trying to do.

Peter Zelinski 

Manufacturing is changing and media is changing. And to address additive manufacturing is to address this subject matter that is as broad as all of manufacturing is. And also speak to this very diverse group of people who are stepping into the disruptions additive is bringing in all different ways. So that moment where we allowed this supplement to become a standalone publication, around that moment, too, we had discovered how successful our fledgling additive conference was proving to be. And sort of those couple of things provided the platform that allowed us to start branching out and figuring out like, what is the best way really, to give sort of real time currency and coverage to the themes we’re encountering and additive. What’s the best way to showcase cool parts? Like, we figured these things out as we went. And the result is, yeah, when we say Additive Manufacturing Media now, we are describing this multicolor array of channels we use to touch many different readers, viewers, listeners, attendees who are all fascinated by and investing themselves in this technology.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, so that’s a lot about kind of the publication and where we came from. I do want to use this conversation a little bit to just, like, reflect on additive manufacturing, the technology and the users by kind of digging back through our archives. Yeah, so I have been looking back through some of the supplement issues, like the little small versions. And for those of you who don’t have magazine collections, like go back to the 20 teens, you can find all of these on our website. If you go to Additive Manufacturing dot Media and click on the latest issue tab and just scroll down, there’s a whole digital archive where you can go back all the way to the beginning to 2012. So just in, like, flipping through some of these back issues, there were a couple of things that I noticed. Like, there are some really obvious things that have changed. I think we’ve maybe even talked about this on the podcast before, but there was a time where the default to describe how a part was printed was to say that it was grown or it was being grown. And, like, that didn’t age super well, right?

Peter Zelinski 

So much is changing so fast that even the words that we use to describe how we’re making parts this way, we have felt our way through that. That’s right. I think there was a moment where, “We can’t really say printing and printed, can we?” And so we were looking for other terms. There was a brief moment where growing apart, that term was in currency, it didn’t take root. Growing didn’t take root. There’s one kind of cringe-y cover that we did, like I’m thinking of where the word grow was prominent, but I'll say this. Additive Manufacturing Conference 2021, late last year, I was on stage with Greg Morris and he used that verb, he talks about growing apart. So so if it’s okay with Greg Morris, it’s still kind of okay.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, okay. Okay, that’s, if that’s the, the measure, then maybe we’re still alright. Some of the other changes that I noticed a lot of the companies we were writing about, or I wasn’t even part of the team until 2015. But a lot of the companies that you and Christina were writing about don’t exist anymore. They went out of business in a couple of cases, or they got acquired just a couple of examples. So, like, in 2014, Christina did story on Linear, which then was Linear Mold and Engineering, and has been through like this whole epic journey in terms of ownership and acquisition over the past couple of years. And we’ve kind of followed it all the way through, there were a lot of stories of people using equipment from companies like Arcam, and Concept Laser, both of which were acquired by GE. So, there are some changes in how the marketplace and the suppliers have played out as well. But one of the striking things that I noticed was that just the diversity of technologies, and materials and the types of businesses that we were covering back then has really grown and expanded. So in, like, 2013/2014, the focus was very much on machine shops, on mold shops. Most of what we were covering was metals, some plastics here and there. I think we’re a lot more balanced in terms of metals versus plastics versus composites today, and then the scope of what we cover just feels broader. Now, do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Peter Zelinski 

Boy, yeah, there’s so much in what you just said. So I’ll give you an example of the company names in the supplement years when it was Christina and I. For a few years, doing a very small publication quarterly to cover additive, we just accepted we would do a whole lot of coverage of Eos and Stratasys. Because a lot of the industrial applications drew on the the offerings of one of those two companies. We don’t have that problem anymore. And, and props to EOS and Stratasys companies still advancing and still a vibrant part of this space. But there are a whole lot of other technology providers that fit that description as well. And in talking about successful applications and the advance of technology, it is easily possible now to cover a diversity of companies that are making this happen, the range of the users that you’re describing. How can we kind of – we were leaning toward machine shops, mold shops in the beginning, I think that’s probably right. I don't know that that was by design. But, but we, there’s so much on a fundamental level that we’re figuring out in the industry is figuring out and part of it is where does production that relies on a 3D printing process. Where does that take place? What does it even look like? And we’re learning that an existing industrial business or facility might be able to ramp up and bootstrap up an additive aspect of its business. Maybe that’s also really challenging because additive wants to disrupt the whole enterprise and the whole organization. And if you’re already succeeding very well with an established process, then it doesn’t want to be disrupted that way. So there’s an extent to which new kinds of businesses coming in using these technologies in an industrial capacity. That’s part of what’s happening too. I think if we follow this conversation further, it’s like, who we even think of as our audience and who’s coming into manufacturing through additive manufacturing that picture is becoming clearer. But I don’t think that picture is complete yet.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

So all of that is true. But can I tell you? Like, the really interesting thing about looking back through these old issues, so many of these companies that were being covered at the time, the, the users were having problems that are probably very familiar to even the newcomers that we’re talking about. Now, like, these companies beyond moldmaking and machining, there was a lot that I found that felt just as relevant to me today as it probably did back then. So just as a couple of examples, like in 2015, there was this article where you interviewed Dr. Tim Simpson at Penn State University, all about the things you need to understand about additive manufacturing, things like support structures and build orientation. And, like, flipping through that, there are plenty of additive manufacturers who understand that today, but there are a lot of companies, who are still coming into it for the first time where that information is still very valuable to them. Like it doesn’t feel outdated, it doesn’t feel like it’s in the past. And then looking at people who were figuring out how to use the technology back then. There was a story also in 2015 about Deka Research and Development, and they were using, like, this interesting alloy that was really difficult to machine but, turns out, not that hard to 3D print. And, like, they were realizing these interesting geometries, and trying to figure out how to apply this material that until recently had been too difficult to use in a lot of ways. And they were, again, working out things like “How do we think about design for additive? How do we deal with the residual stresses? Is the rough surface finish from laser powder, bed fusion? Is it helpful? Or is it detrimental to this application?” They’re asking those kinds of questions. And then just to throw one more example out there, in 2015, you wrote a story about Lockheed Martin, and they were 3D printing, like these parts for a satellite. And they had this electron beam melting system from, from Arcam. And they were trying to figure out like the best way to use additive, and they were doing this thing where they were printing parts on the printer, and then also machining the same part at the same time to try and figure out which one was going to be more expensive. I feel like that tension, like what is the right part to 3D print? What should stick to conventional processes? That sort of struggle to identify the right parts for printing, like, just felt very familiar and still very relevant.

Peter Zelinski 

I’m struck hearing you say that because when I imagine you digging back that far into the archives, like the first few years and looking at the stories, we told them how we reported, then I’m not sure what you’d find. Like, there’s a chance that it comes off really dated and not relevant. But the fact that it, that some of what we were talking about then, a lot of what we were talking about then about the users, and the things they’re learning is still relevant today. Guess what that tells me, what that illustrates about the way this technology and its use has advanced, all of these different applications and markets and sectors and types of manufacturing are being disrupted. And the advances taking the form of the population of people, in the population of applications moving through the disruption, is getting a lot broader. Maybe the disruption, in a lot of ways, is fundamentally the same than the learning curve you have to go through is it hasn’t changed much, but a whole lot more people and a whole lot broader swath of manufacturing. And a growing swath is seeing the value in beginning the walk into that disruption. I guess something else I see is that for you to go back, before you joined what we’re doing, you have to reach back pretty far. You joined us in 2015. And we want to talk about 10 years of additive manufacturing. You’ve been here for most of it. What’s your processing of it? What do you remember about from when you first started exploring this technology and started talking about it, versus the ways that you talk about it now? Or maybe some of the assumptions that you make about it now? Do you detect any kind of shift in your approach to the subject matter or the audience or, or your role or our role over that span of time?

Stephanie Hendrixson 

I feel a lot more freedom in what I’m able to talk about and have conversations about and to ultimately cover for the brand like coming in in 2015. The focus really was on sort of the machine job environment, the mold shop environment, a little bit like OEMs here and there. But, like, the places I was going and visiting were things that you would recognize as as a machine shop or a fabrication shop or something like that word shop fits, and there’s been conversations on this podcast about what that word means. And as our scope has sort of brought in as those newcomers to manufacturing start to adopt additive and find that 3D printing is the way to make this thing that they want to make. I just feel like my job as an editor has gotten that much bigger. Like, I’m learning all the time about these different industries and how they’re applying additive. And it’s not something that I maybe would have imagined back in 2015. But in the past couple of years, I’ve talked to people who are selling shoes who come from, like, the fashion industry, people who are home brewers and have found that 3D printing is the right way to make this, like, specialty device for people who are really serious about home brewing beer. And it’s just, like, these are, these are stories that I might have overlooked, or I might have passed up, or I might have just said no to earlier. But just the way that this publication has evolved, along with the users of additive manufacturing, I feel more comfortable doing that. And I feel like it’s valid. And I feel like it’s part of our scope now. So that connects to something, something else I kind of wanted to bring up in this conversation. So 2012 was the start of the supplement. 2015 was when I joined. And then in 2017, there was sort of this, like, shift this, this thing that happened where we made a conscious decision to sort of steer the publication in one particular way.

Peter Zelinski 

Yeah, and I remember that. I know exactly what you’re talking about from the outset. 10 years ago, we were very careful to be focused on industrial applications of 3D printing. And we talked about nothing but functional components, tooling, and use parts bridge production. And that was a novel position in 2012. Because there were lots of voices talking about 3D printing, but it’s just, it’s all the different applications of 3D printing, many of which were not industrial and were not focused on functional components. We never covered modeling applications, look and feel prototypes during. The result of that was some of the flashiest 3D printing stuff is stuff that we avoided for the sake of doing boring, functional industrial stuff, which is where our audience is and where we want it to be. And we were sort of validated in that because the 3D printing space moved in that direction around 2017. You’re right, it’s when we began to have the conversations about scale production applications involving quantity, consistency, repeatability. And these are things that then and even now, to some extent, we don’t necessarily associate with 3D printing, but the improvements in the technology are moving it in that direction. And the production quantities that potentially make sense for additive manufacturing, that envelope continues to grow. From that point on, we’ve kept our industrial focus functional components. But as much as we can, we’ve, we have leaned toward production and tried to do that. And we’ve watched the applications and the successes, follow along in that direction.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

So since that shift in 2017, like we still have continued to cover some of those other applications like tooling, especially functional prototypes here and there, but production really has become the focus, and I think that’s held true over the last five years and probably going forward as well. So, I think now would be a good time to end our look back at the past. After the break, we are going to look forward we’re gonna make some predictions about the next 10 years in additive manufacturing, so stay tuned.

Peter Zelinski 

This episode of the AM Radio podcast is brought to you by PTXPO, a new event for professionals in the plastics industry, designed for the entire North American plastics market. This tradeshow will feature equipment, machinery, materials and technology solutions throughout pavilion exhibit halls. Check out the exhibits, attend educational sessions with manufacturing experts and make new connections in the industry. If your business is involved in plastics processing, moldmaking or additive manufacturing, this is the event for you join Additive Manufacturing and sister brands Plastics Technology and Moldmaking Technology for the first ever PTXPO. The inaugural event takes place March 29 through 31st, 2022, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. Find more information about attending exhibiting or sponsoring this event at PlasticsTechnologyExpo.com.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

And we’re back. So in the first half of the show, we took a look back at Additive Manufacturing the brand, a little bit about the technology and how it has progressed over the last 10 years. But for the second half of this episode, I want to stick sort of with the technology and explore where we think its headed over the next decade. So before recording this episode, I asked both of us to come up with three predictions for the future. Are you ready to share Pete?

Peter Zelinski 

Yeah, our 10-year anniversary. It’s, like, a great moment to look ahead 10 years, and it’s the right timeframe to. We are following a long arc here and additive manufacturing doesn’t just play plug in to the ways we have done manufacturing. It brings dramatically new possibilities that will take a long time for us to see and to play out. So kind of long arc is what we’re giving ourselves permission to do with a 10 year prediction. Here’s one of mine. I think service parts and aftermarket support will lead to a reengineering of the entire product lifecycle for the ways we think about the lives of manufactured products, any valuable or sophisticated product you put out into the market, you know, car, appliance, jet plane, whatever it is. The service part of that product is a very expensive and difficult part of its life. And additive manufacturing pretty obviously brings some huge potential for savings here. Like, what if you could just 3D print a component that was needed for a product that’s out in the field rather than keeping every single part you might need in inventory somewhere? But that means you need to have digital 3D printable versions of these parts from the very beginning. So that aftermarket challenge ultimately becomes a pre-market challenge because it suggests that the way that you design and engineer these parts from the very beginning has to account for a 3D printing possibility from the very beginning. So I see that incredible promise of transforming service and aftermarket. That will become the seed that will lead to this full scale transformation of the manufacturing enterprise that we see additive manufacturing asking for, and I like specifically, I think, the phrase is dual specking. I think it’s going to take time, and it’s going to come very gradually. But I think manufacturers are going to accept to dual specking. Let’s develop the parts in a mode where it can be produced, the scale production, through 3D printing, and a mode where it can be produced maybe more cost effectively through an established process, but do the initial production through 3D printing, mostly. So you’re all set to 3D print, maybe years down the road, when that’s the way you want to do aftermarket service.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

I think that absolutely makes sense that I think we’re starting to see some of that groundwork happening.

Peter Zelinski 

Yeah. Okay, now you talk, what’s your prediction?

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Okay, so I sort of frame this as something for consumer products. But as I’m thinking about it, actually, I think maybe this is just going to be true of 3D printed parts overall — increasingly weird designs. So additive manufacturing can deliver on these designs that we previously would not have been able to make. So I’m thinking like topology optimized forms, the crazy, cool generative design type things that w’vee seen. But you have to consider how the end user is going to react to that. Right. So we’ve had some conversations, for instance, on The Cool Parts Show with a company called Hilos, which is making shoes. They’re, like, they’re heels, and they, they 3D print the platform. They’re making these shoes that are kind of high end there for a fashion focused consumer. And you really can’t tell from the outside that they were 3D printed. The focus is not buy these shoes because they were 3D printed; it’s buy the shoes because they’re comfortable, because they’re sustainable, because we can make them exactly for your feet. And that was really intentional on the part of the designer, because a consumer might look at something that was 3D printed, and it’s got this like weird generative design look to it. And it might look asymmetrical, it might not look appealing, it might not look comfortable. If you’re trying to sell something made through 3D printing, you may not want to go for the absolute weirdest design you can possibly make first because it might discourage certain customers from trusting the product, from wanting the product, from buying the product. We’re just not used to some of these things yet. Another example. So Cobra Golf came out with this putter that has a 3D printed head, and it has a lattice design and the lattice is exposed, but the lattice is perfectly symmetrical. Like, they didn’t do anything strange or unusual with it, because they knew it was going to be visible. They didn’t want to go too weird too quickly because it might discourage golfers from considering this club. But I think we are, we are maybe headed towards a point where, as people start to get more used to seeing designs like this, they might start to want things that are a little bit more unusual, they might start to accept that the table with the weird looking base is just as stable as the one that looks more conventional. We’re already sort of starting to see this happen. So, like, Ikea just came out with this line of, like, home decor items that have been 3D printed. And they’re lattices and, like, the lattices are not perfectly regular, like they’re starting to sort of play with the design there. And I think as we start to see more 3D printed objects more generatively designed or topology optimized objects just in our daily lives, that people will start to maybe try, trust the technology a little bit more. And I think that additive will have a chance to advance further when these types of designs become more common and more accepted.

Peter Zelinski 

So huge. Our very experience of the world will change. We live in this manufactured world. And it’s straight lines and perfect circles because that’s what machinery wants to do. And do we gradually find ourselves in a manufactured world that looks more like a pond or a forest, because of the shapes that are there? That maybe connects to another prediction I brought, something I see, which is, I think we’ll see the arrival of a new category of machine shop, machine shop, established type of manufacturing business, but we’ll see a category of machine shop that specializes in metal additive parts metal, 3D printed parts, and the particular machining challenges of that component. An additive component is a workpiece unlike anything else that machine shops routinely encounter, partly because of what you’re describing organic forms that don’t offer very easy clamping and locating surfaces for machining, combined with very high value because there’s a lot of time that’s been invested in the part by the time it would get to machining. So you could say, “Yeah, castings are sort of organic forms, too.” But castings are oftentimes very high volume and relatively inexpensive. The machine shop I’m imagining that specializes in metal additive, they know how to handle these very organic, strangely shaped parts in a way that allows for absolutely no scrap because the value of the parts is so high. There’s this whole set of machining related skills, waist machining is going to get better and more sophisticated, because of what additive can do. And then that’s coming. I think, the thing I don’t know is, what does this shop even look like? And where does it live? Are there independent machine shops that have this specialty? Or is it more the case that there’s metal additive contractors that also have specialty machine shops that they develop internally, and it’s all under one roof? I don’t necessarily know how that will work. But I do see our conventional manufacturing disciplines growing through synergy with 3D printing.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

That actually kind of connects to something we talked about in the first half of the show, like the tension between what’s additive manufacturing? And can we just call it printing and that whole issue, and what you’re describing is the 3D printing is an important and valuable step for making a part. But it requires this specialization in terms of how do you machine it, how do you post process it? Maybe how do you inspect it? Like, there’s this whole stream of other things that has to surround the actual printing step. And a model like that is maybe where additive needs to go. Okay, so here’s my next prediction. Over the next 10 years, more intentional material usage enabled by additive manufacturing. So we know that additive is good at allowing you to conserve material by doing, like, those optimizations, creating really lightweight parts. Don’t put material anywhere you don’t need to. But I think that we are moving towards a more nuanced understanding of how to apply material and different types of materials in combination. Things like multi material parts gradients are going to be really, really important. We talked about this actually, recently, in an episode of The Cool Parts Show on 3D printed magnets — how magnets come from this rare earth element, and it’s difficult to get. And so, is there a future where instead of printing any magnetic item fully out of that material, could you make a gradient? Could you only apply the magnetic material exactly where you need it? And I think that is going to be a design challenge, like learning where to put these types of materials and how to use them the best and making sure that they’re, they’re bonding appropriately. But this is something that I think additive is going to be really key to our understanding of how and where to use material. And then there’s the issue of sustainability and recyclability. And I think and I hope over the next 10 years, we’re going to have more options for renewable materials to print with things that are coming from bio sources or things that are coming from recycled sources. And I hope a better understanding of how to recycle, how to break down those materials and reuse them at the end of their life cycles. So yeah, more intentional material usage with 3D printing.

Peter Zelinski 

So what material do I use becomes this big, big question this much broader question with, with a whole lot more options in the design space. Let me pivot to this. So my prediction, who is a manufacturer is a question that opens up and becomes much broader in a similar way. My 10-year prediction is, all of us in industry getting used to the idea of the inventor as a new category of manufacturer. Because the way it has been, somebody has an idea for a new product or a lone inventor, or a company, that is innovating something internally, they conceive of a new product, but then, there’s this hard line between design and ideation, then into manufacturing. And then somehow, the manufacturing people have to be brought in. And there’s an official step of going to manufacturing. Additive manufacturing is changing that and creating this gradient — I’ll use that term here too — this gradient of when am I still designing and innovating and when am I manufacturing, and a small group or a single individual with a great idea for a product can be doing production through 3D printing, or a larger established company wanting to serve a new niche they’re not quite in could be producing in the same way without moving into their, their full scale processes. And so this edge space than these niche arenas of types of products, where we are in production, and we’re selling product, but the inventor herself or himself is still directly involved, and maybe even directly overseeing these machines that are 3D printing the product. We’re going to start to take it for granted that a whole lot of manufacturing looks like that. And maybe eventually, at some point of success, it transitions into something that looks like more conventional, higher volume production. But there’s not a clean decisive handoff. The, the inventor, the product innovator, as also the manufacturer, our circle of what we think of as manufacturing, is going to have to grow much larger to encompass these sorts of people.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, I definitely agree. I think that’s right. And I think we’re going to be more used to the gradient between prototype and product getting a little bit blurry, like that ability to keep innovating, especially if the inventor is still involved, is literally the manufacturer. You can keep tweaking the design, keep making changes, even at the same time as you’re producing and selling this product. Yeah. All right, here is my final prediction. Over the next 10 years, I think we’re going to see new methods of 3D printing that become significant, which are methods that we have not yet even imagined. So one of the things I really like about this job is that I’m constantly just, like, getting my mind blown with new ways that people are figuring out how to do 3D printing. Because it’s such a broad term, it describes so many different types of technologies. Like so just a couple of examples in the last year of things that blew my mind… So we recently recorded an episode of The Cool Parts Show with 9TLabs, and they have this interesting method for 3D printing thermoplastic that’s reinforced with continuous carbon fiber. It happens to involve a compression mold — we get into all of those issues. But that was just, like, a really weird, interesting thing that I hadn’t thought of, I hadn’t encountered before. I wrote a story last year about a new method for printing with ceramics, where the University of Texas at Dallas has developed this method where they can extrude this preceramic resin. Like, it’s not something that could support its own weight if you just extruded it in the way you would a regular filament. But they figured out this way to print it inside of a gel bath that holds it exactly where they place it. That was just sort of, like, mind blowing. We recently did a couple of articles on Mantel, which has developed this true shape process for printing metal parts that require really minimal post processing. So they’re printing with a metal paste, they dry it, they’re machining it while it’s still paste, and then they center it. And if they lose so little of the mass in the sintering process that a lot of those parts can go straight into an injection mold that can be used as tooling without a lot of extra post processing. And those are just a couple of examples. I’m sure there are even weirder and stranger things on the way, and I’m just so excited to find out what those things are what's coming.

Peter Zelinski 

That’s so right. Additive manufacturing is new. It’s very new. So 3D printing has been around a long time. 3D printing goes back decades. But that moment when we started this brand, when Additive Manufacturing Media started 10 years ago, that was right about the moment where 3D printing was crossing this threshold into industrialization. And that is too recent for us to figure it out yet, what that even means. So yeah, we should be prepared for that in these next 10 years to come. Our minds are going to keep getting blown and what we assume 3D printing is and how it should behave. I bet I’m sure we’re making some assumptions right now that are going to be invalidated by technology is yet to come.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Absolutely possible. So those are our predictions for the next 10 years and additive manufacturing, but if you’re listening to the show right now, we want to hear yours too. Where do you think additive manufacturing is headed? So if you want to share your thoughts, there are a lot of different ways you can get in touch with us you can email us press at Additive Manufacturing Media. You can tweet at us — I’m AM underscore Stephanie H.

Peter Zelinski 

Yeah, I have two underscores in mine, so I am Z underscore Axis underscore MMS.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

You can also find both of us on LinkedIn, and also feel free to reach out to the Additive Manufacturing brand on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram. Thanks for listening.

Peter Zelinski 

AM Radio is recorded with help from Austin Grogan. The show is edited by Alex Lytle and Stephanie Hendrixson. Our artwork is by Kate Bilberry. AM Radio and Additive Manufacturing Media are products of Gardner Business Media located in Cincinnati, Ohio. I’m Pete Zelinski. Thanks for listening.