If they haven't they soon will! I was looking at one at Home Depot this week for $1000.00. They had a selection of small things made on it, pretty cool! I could envision all kinds of detail parts that could be made. All it takes is $.

The 3-D printers require the right software to create the 3-D models, once you have a 3-D model you can "print" it, clean it up, paint it...

The overall cost should also include the CAD software

That technology is used in industry all the time, sometimes the surface finish is kinda rough so it would require some prep work to get a really smooth surface.

It's only a matter of time before it gets used for our industry!

Fred

Sorta bouncing off what Fred said:

If the market for "hobbyist" 3D printers goes the way other "home" and "hobbyist" technology things have, there's no guarantee that the printer you buy will actually work with the file formats that the professionals use.  Some companies will do it out of laziness, others will intentionally try to bind you to their product.

I strongly suggest that if you're interested in buying a 3D printer you make sure you know the full score before you lay down your money.  I'm not going to say what you ought to do, but you ought to at least know.

(I could use a friend with a 3D printer.  I have a pilot figure that I want to make for stunt; if I knew someone who could print it out with thin enough walls for it to not weigh much, then I'd seriously consider making a 3D model of it rather than trying to craft it out of plastic and balsa wood).

My local library has one available for use.  Being public access they restrict the size of the model to printing in 1 hour or less.  The material fee is about $5.  Even these restrictions allow a lot of things to be printed for our use.  Unfortunately, I've been waiting for the machine to come back from the repair shop, it's been out of service for a month now.  One of the biggest roadblocks to 3D printing is not the machine but the access, knowledge & skill to create the model in a decent 3D CAD program.  When the 3D model is converted to the print model it is actually printed as a hollow model with a honeycomb internal structure for support.  You can specify the wall thickness as well as the percentage (density) of the internal structure.  It prints faster, saves material and is surprisingly lightweight.

I designed a cowling for a small twin electric powered scale model that I want to print.  To view the sample 3D model, open the attached file in Adobe Reader X or above, click on the image to activate the 3D view and drag the image to rotate in 3D.  Once I get it printed I'll let you know what kind of dimensional tolerance it prints at.

Paul