83-Year-Old Woman Gets the World’s First 3-D Printed Jaw Transplant | Popular Science: “Once the team designed the jaw, it was just a matter of sintering it together, according to LayerWise. A high-precision laser heated titanium powder particles to melt them together in successive layers. It took 33 layers to build just one millimeter, so the whole jaw consists of thousands of layers, BBC reported. Doctors coated the jaw in a biocompatible ceramic layer and attached it to the woman’s face in a four-hour surgery. That’s one-fifth the time it would have taken to perform a reconstructive surgery using the patient’s own mouthparts, BBC said. It weighs 107 grams, which is one-third heavier than her previous jaw, but doctors said she’ll be able to get used to it.”

h/t Sean for the link.

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This is awesome.

Hmm… wonder if I can call Volkswagen for a credit?

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Normally you can see the successive print layers that the extruder head lays down (an artifact of the “top-down” technique that current 3d printers use). Much work has gone into making the layering as accurate and smooth as possible. I think they’ve done a rather nice job of it:

That’s a closeup of a 3d printed shot glass with a human hair in the foreground. Not a bad finish on the “glass”, no?

Just passed the $800 mark on the MakerBot ING account. Christmas marks the halfway point (wow, time flies when you’re saving for tech). Next Christmas is the ETA for Timberline Custom Woodworking (my sole prop WW business) to buy that MakerBot. Fifty dollars at a time and you can buy anything.

h/t Sean