3-D printing a boon to entrepreneurs TECHNOLOGY 3-D printing is making many small businesses possible and profitable

A close-up of a 3D printer at work at the TechShop in San Francisco. A close-up of a 3D printer at work at the TechShop in San Francisco. Photo: Courtesy Of TechShop, Joseph Schell Photo: Courtesy Of TechShop, Joseph Schell Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close 3-D printing a boon to entrepreneurs 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

It seems like science fiction come to life: a machine that quickly manufactures almost anything you ask of it, from a pair of earrings to a prosthetic leg to an airplane part. But that's basically what a 3-D printer is. It's probably no coincidence that the most popular personal 3-D printer, made by MakerBot of Brooklyn, is called the Replicator, just like the machine that conjured up food and drink, utensils and all, for the crew of "Star Trek's" Enterprise.

The use of personal 3-D printers, which sell for $1,000 to $2,000, is growing rapidly, but they are mostly for hobbyists since their technical limitations prevent them from making a range of durable consumer products. But as access to higher-end 3-D printers becomes more affordable, creative Bay Area residents are using the technology to start small businesses based on concepts that would have been impossible just a few years ago.

Take Summer Powell of San Francisco, who designs jewelry on a computer screen in 3-D, then pays New York printing service Shapeways to make the earrings and pendants out of nylon on a 3-D printer. When Powell receives the printed jewelry in the mail, she adds a few finishing touches and sells them on the website Etsy, in boutiques and through her own website, Summerized.com. Powell's pieces include moving parts and intricate designs that she couldn't imagine creating with traditional manufacturing processes.

"I think most of it you could only make this way, because it's so delicate and precise. I don't think you could make it with a mold," Powell said.

3-D printing is also known as additive manufacturing, because it creates an object by adding material, layer by layer, as opposed to more traditional subtractive manufacturing. If you take a block of marble and chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant, you've made a sculpture using subtractive manufacturing. But when a 3-D printer makes an elephant sculpture, it builds it up by depositing material, layer by layer. The final product emerges whole, with very little waste. Home 3-D printers work in plastic, but high-end industrial machines use a range of materials including plastics, titanium and steel.

For years, 3-D printing has been spurring innovation by lowering the cost and time needed to create prototypes of new inventions. That's still one of the main uses for the 3-D printers at San Francisco's TechShop work space, where professional designers and "makers" -technology enthusiasts with a do-it-yourself bent - pay a monthly membership fee for unlimited access to 3-D printers and other sophisticated manufacturing tools. Jesse Harrington Au, an Autodesk employee who works out of TechShop with the title "maker advocate," marvels over how much easier it is to make a plastic model of a new product using 3-D printers and other rapid prototyping technologies. "You're in it for $5 now instead of $20,000, to figure out what that prototype looks like and if it's going to work and how it feels," Harrington Au said. "Entrepreneurs have a major jump in the game."

As he spoke, Harrington Au pulled a finished plastic vase off a 3-D printer, made from a 3-D model that comes with Autodesk's software. To have a 3-D printer make something, you need a 3-D model of that object. In the past, the need for CAD software skills was a barrier for many would-be 3-D printer users.

MBA BY THE BAY: See how an MBA could change your life with SFGATE's interactive directory of Bay Area programs.

Even kids use it

But, thanks to 3-D scanners and user-friendly software such as Autodesk's 123D, 3-D printing is becoming doable for more people, even kids, Harrington Au said. There are also thousands of 3-D models of objects, from toys to holiday decorations to clothes hangers, available free online. 3-D printer users design the objects and share them on websites such as MakerBot's Thingiverse.com.

As useful as 3-D printing has been for prototyping, 3-D printing industry analyst and consultant Terry Wohlers said that one of the biggest trends right now is the transition to printing finished products and parts, instead of just models. High-end printers owned by corporations are creating aircraft parts and titanium medical implants, and dentists are printing out crowns as small businesses become part of the trend, Wohlers said.

Nearly a quarter of the revenue from 3-D printed products now comes from the production of finished products or parts, not prototypes - up from less than 4 percent in 2003, Wohlers found.

New services help

"Increasingly in the last couple of years, we've seen jewelry, games and puzzles, and gifts like trophies (and) protective covers for phones," he said. Shapeways, the printing service and marketplace Powell used, and other services like it, have helped make that possible, Wohlers said.

For consumers, 3-D printing is making customization more affordable and accessible while expanding the variety of unique objects available to buy. "Scanning your face and putting it on a bobble head becomes doable," Wohlers said. "Product variety is exploding. It's so easy to introduce a new product; there's very little risk."

Powell was a freelance graphic designer and artist who was fascinated by 3-D printing, and started making jewelry three years ago as a way to learn to use CAD software. The startup costs were so low - under $100 to create a new product, she said - that she almost fell into business without thinking about it. Now, she's transitioning to running her business full time, and plans to add housewares and sculptures to her inventory.

For Jason Smith of San Rafael, 3-D printing has helped turn an interest into a side business. Smith, a busy father of four and a visual effects supervisor by day, uses his spare time to design and sell twisty puzzles - think Rubik's Cube, but infinitely more complex. His Puzzle Forge workshop has manufactured the toys both the old-fashioned way and using 3-D printing, and he called the technology's impact on twisty puzzles "an exponential explosion."

A puzzle a week

In the past, twisty puzzle lovers could look forward to 10 to 20 new puzzles hitting the market each year, he said. "Now, I release a puzzle almost every week, because all I have to do is think it through and design it, and upload it to Shapeways," he said.

Because 3-D printing a single plastic puzzle is more expensive than mass producing a million of them, Smith charges several hundred dollars for some of his puzzles. They are shipped as bags of monochrome parts, which the buyer must assemble and finish with colored stickers.

"I just got an order yesterday where a collector bought $1,000 worth of my designs. I get about $300 of that, and I didn't do anything," Smith said. "I can concentrate on coming up with new ideas."