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Whoops, I got that backwards.  The headline actually read, “Fastener Customers Reject 3D Printers”.  Wow, that’s pretty harsh.  They’re rejecting 3D printers!!  That’s what the headline said!!  Whatever that means exactly.

Listen, I’m no 3D printing guru.  I’m kind of fascinated by 3D printing.  I’ve seen the machines make parts from plastic and from inconel.  But I’d agree with the FMW Fasteners survey that 3D printers do not seem to be a viable option to produce fasteners – for now.  The survey said nearly 60% of those surveyed said they were unlikely or very unlikely to turn to 3D printing as an alternative to purchasing fasteners from specialists.  Well, I’d place a large bet that if, some day, I were able to produce comparable quality parts for a lower cost by doing so with 3D printing, that 60% would drop to about 5%.  Today, that is not possible.  But “rejecting” 3D printing reminds me of the boss who said, “if I ever catch one of my employees texting with a customer I’ll fire their ass”.  People text with customers all the time now and sometimes it is just the most efficient way of communicating and sending pictures of applications.

I saw the article on 3D printing in both Fastener Technology International and in Global Fastener News.  The funny thing about the Global Fastener News article was that if you went a little further down the page you’d see the article, “3D Printing Partnership Enables Fastener Success”.  Both articles were sent at the same time in the same GFN news release.  The article explains, “Using traditional methods, it would normally take Barton Coldform up to 14 weeks to produce tooling to created demonstrator parts and products, but now using 3D printing the process takes just days”. No, the production parts were not being made on 3D printers, but the prototype parts were and it enabled the company to “save time and money in the whole supply chain”.

I have heard visionaries suggest that parts departments will one day have a 3D printer making replacement parts in a warehouse rather than stocking all the replacement parts “just in case” someone needs them someday.  No, we are not yet at a place where it makes any sense to 3D print production parts, but the technology is very young.  And companies, including many, many fastener companies are investing heavily into 3D technology.  Another line from the “rejection” article read “Fasteners have got to be strong – they’ve got to be able to be robust enough to not fail under stress.  Until we can see genuine strength from a fastener produced from a 3D printer, the trust will not be there to go ahead and mass produce”.  C’mon now.  We have labs that test cold and hot formed fasteners everyday!!  We don’t completely trust those parts either and that is why we do so much testing.  That’s why we send parts to labs, we test products to make sure they are what they are supposed to be.  3D parts are going into the engines of airplanes you are going to be flying in so I’m guessing someday someone will figure out a reliable way to test 3D printed fastener parts.

But, for now, our industry has spoken.  We have “REJECTED”.  In fairness, “fastener customers” might have been saying that they do not foresee a time when they will 3D print parts in their own facilities instead of buying them from suppliers.   But if a supplier can economically produce fasteners and is able to guarantee the quality, the industry may not be concerned how they were made.  Just as long as they test out.