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Yeah, Sherline, for one, has been making desktop CNC mills and lathes for years, and they even sell them together with a computer. Prices in the $2k to $3k range.

I have no idea of the quality, since I don't (yet) own one, but they look pretty good from my research over the last couple of years.

This is a wild guess on my part, but I think the popularity of 3D printers helped bring down the prices on reasonably sized stepper motors, as well as the cost of the electronics and software.

Because if you call it workshop upper middle class guys will think it's a place where dirty. low-class, lowlifes work with old techniques like welders

Everyone is different. I'm an upper Middle class white guy. I have multiple graduate degrees, I can also make damn near anything out of wood, plastic, or metal, and have a private workshop with the means to do so. Most of my equally upper middle class white guy friends, have old cars, motorcycles, or tractors and know how to service them and in many cases build them from essentially scratch. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Welding is a good way to make stuff, and even an upper middle class guy should be able to learn it. The equipment for MIG welding is simple and cheap. Any decent workerspace/makeshop should have one. You also want a CNC vertical mill, and lathe, even if it is just a table top, like a Sherline. . .

This is an important distinction, at least for me. You need to have the stuff that people likely don't have in their own workshops and staff that knows how to use it. I have an abnormally well equipped personal workshop and the skills to use it. What I don't have is the things like a CNC Mill, and because of the cost, I'll probably never have one. I gladly pay the day rate at my (not so)local coop when I need to use one

Because if you call it workshop upper middle class guys will think it's a place where dirty. low-class, lowlifes work with old techniques like welders

Welding is a good way to make stuff, and even an upper middle class guy should be able to learn it. The equipment for MIG welding is simple and cheap. Any decent workerspace/makeshop should have one. You also want a CNC vertical mill, and lathe, even if it is just a table top, like a Sherline. If you have a Techshop nearby, you should partner with them. If there is a Techshop a day's drive away, you should pay them a visit. You will learn a lot. You might talk to them about opening a branch in your town. Also, talk to your insurance company, and make sure what you are planning is allowed under your existing policy.

I take it you've never actually used a 3-D printer?

I have used both 3D printers, and a Sherline table-top CNC. The amount of operator skill needed for CNC is far higher. You need to be able to plan and code the specific sequence of steps, the spindle speed, gear backlash etc. You need to know about cutting fluids, metallurgy, work hardening, when to use "climb" milling, etc. Even after ten years I still learn something new every time I talk to an experienced machinist.

... an arbitrary three-dimensional piece of ...

Oh yeah, desktop CNC mills didn't exist just a few years ago.

CNC mills are far more limited in the arbitrariness of the shape that can be formed. They cannot form internal corners, complex cavities, overhangs, etc. They are also much more expensive and require far more skill and experience to use. On the other hand, even a home user can make aluminum or stainless steel parts with a desktop mill such as a Sherline. Mills and 3D printers are really complimentary rather than competitors. I will sometimes do a plastic rapid prototype on a 3D printer, and after checking the fit and function, mill it in aluminum for a stronger part with a better finish. Plus it looks shiny.

Well, like milling machines, as long as they cost 500K and years of experience to use they will not have to outlaw it.

Milling machines cost no where near $500k. You can get them for a thousand times less than that. I bought my first vertical mill for about $400. You can buy a CNC mill for $880. You don't need CNC capability to make a gun, but it will make it easier.

These mills may be small, but they are not toys. With the exception of the size of the workpiece, they can do anything that big iron can do.

Sorry for any confusion: I was referring to the knowledge required to complete an "80% lower", which is legally a chunk of metal (not a gun). All you need is a drill press to complete such a lower.

I concede that making a lower receiver would be far easier than making a barrel or the BCG. But there is no way to do it with just a drill press. At a minimum you would need a vertical mill, preferably CNC. You can buy a small mill, such as a Sherline for about $600 ($900 for CNC), but these small mills actually require more skill to operate compared to big iron. They are more likely to chatter from bad spindle speed settings or a too fast feed rate ... or too slow of a feed rate, which can cause a steel workpiece to temper (or be "work hardened") and thus more difficult to cut. The advantage of these small machines, is that if you put it on a table or workbench, your nose is only a foot or so away from the spindle and you learn to recognize bad setting by smell. Their unforgiving nature and quick auditory and olfactory feedback will make you a better machinist. If you later move up to big iron, it will be a breeze.

Cost. 3d printers can cost a LOT less than a CNC, both for purchase and continued operation.

And skill. Even if you have the CAD files or G-Code, a CNC mill requires a lot of skill to set up and run. With a 3D printer, you just push the "start" button.

My kids use a 3D printer to make toys and doll furniture. But they are not allowed to touch the Sherline CNC mill in the garage unless I am with them. It is dangerous and they don't have the skill to operate it.

Yeah, and even with this widget you would need to

1. Find the 3D representation of the little plastic part or
2. Create the 3D representation of the little plastic part
4. Find something on the order of the correct plastic - since it was likely a mass molded part in the first place, you would have to find a plastic that had something similar to the mechanical properties of the original but was machinable
5.Set up your machine
6. Run the parts through the cycle a few times (or a hundred times depending how good a machinist your are or are not)
7.Shut the machine down, clean up, install part
8. Repeat the whole cycle when you figure out you neglected to add the little plastic tab that broke off in the first place thus starting this whole commotion.

Just buy the damn part or use duct tape... People have had DIY 3 axis machines for years with CNC capability (See weird w's post above). Sherline Tools sells the canonical setup. Cost you about $1000 but you will spend many more hours and dollars learning how to use it. Even with CNC, there is an art to figuring out how to cut something complex out of a block of material.

So I don't think bringing the costs down to $400 is going to make much of a difference. It will still take lots of time and effort and the couple of hundred dollars a dremel tool based rig is going to save isn't going to get you anywhere.

You can make printed circuits with small CNC mills like these. This kind of machine doesn't have automatic tool change, so you would need at least one manual tool change for each board you make. Then you have to solder the components in, the precision needed for fabricating electronic components is still several orders of magnitude beyond anything that's available to hobbyists today.

I think you answered your own question. If piracy was impossible, no one in his right mind would pay $1000 for a game.

Even $30 could be too much for a game. Case in point: in the year 2000 I bought (legally) the game "Need for Speed - Porsche Unleashed". I liked that game. I later bought "Need for Speed - Underground". It was a POS. I felt I was cheated, because they used the same name "Need for Speed" for a completely different game. The Porsche version was simulator-like and it was good to play with a force-feedback wheel. The later Unleashed version is entirely made for consoles, not PCs, it's optimized for the gamepads most people use with consoles, not for the force-feedback wheel. It shouldn't use the same name as the other one, it should be called "Arcade Racer - Underground", or something like that. Now I feel EA-Games owes me the $30 I paid for NFS-U. I would never have bought it if I hadn't liked the entirely different Porsche game. From now on, I will never buy anything from EA-Games without first testing a pirated copy, to see if it's worth the price.

Imagine that there was a guy standing outside McDonalds giving away free McDonald burgers (copies).

As always, analogies suck. The grandfather post assumed that everyone has a fixed quota of time for playing computer games, the same way everyone eats every day. That ain't so. People play games if they are interesting and the price is right. That's why I mentioned all those alternatives to playing video games. Personally, I have paid a little for a few games in the past. But it was at least five years since I last saw a game worth paying for. I occasionally pirate a game to see if it's worth, if it were I would buy it.

But, anyhow, getting back to the original thread, I don't believe anybody would pay $1000 for a computer game, they simply don't offer anything worth that much. But people do have other ways to pass the time and pay what they feel it's worth. For instance, one of my hobbies is machining metal, I paid close to $1000 for a lathe once. There are other people who also like to work with metal who pay almost nothing for a lathe, they build one instead.

I think the best analogy to the original/pirated games dilemma is to compare companies like Taig or Sherline with the the Gingery family. Dave and Vince Gingery are "open sourcing" the hobbyist machining field. If I knew about the Gingery plans at the time, I wouldn't have bought my lathe, I would have built one instead. Ater all, if my hobby is machining metal, why not start building the machines themselves?

Now, let's say I start building Gingery lathes and give them away, because I love building them, but after I'm done I have no use for another lathe. That would certainly mean that Taig or Sherline or any other company that makes small machine tools would be losing a sale. Do you think that's so bad? Would you put a hobbyist who gives away the products of his hobby in the same category as the software companies put the so-called "pirates"?

The first thing to realise there are plenty of technology related hobbyists around the world, although most are not high profile and some may be different very different demographics than yourself.

Some (hobby) groups to consider looking towards for ideas and help include: woodworkers, metalworkers (hobbyists using micromills and mini-lathes from TaigTools and Sherline, etc.), model railroads, model aircrafts (static and RC), robotics, amateur radio (ham), 2600, LUGs, and Artist Run Centres/Communities

Random list of some I use or know of:
  Make magazine http://www.makezine.com/
  Instructables http://www.instructables.com/
  ARRL http://www.arrl.org/
  http://www.sparkfun.com/ (check out their tutorials)
  http://www.fpga4fun.com/ / http://www.knjn.com/
  QRP-L http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/qrp-l/>
  GQRP http://www.gqrp.com/
  http://www.pololu.com/ (cheap stencils laser cut, e.g. 3x4 for $32)
  http://www.diyaudio.com/
  http://www.digikey.com/ (if you're still buying electronics from Radio Shack, get these 3 catalogs now!)
  http://www.mouser.com/
  http://www.jameco.com/
  the ton of various surplus/NOS dealers online
  http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/
  http://www.seattlerobotics.org/
  http://www.chibots.org/index.php
  DorkBot
  http://eyebeam.org/production/production.php?page= tools
  MIT CBA FAB http://fab.cba.mit.edu/
  http://www.leevalley.com/
  http://www.smallparts.com/
  http://www.danssmallpartsandkits.net/
  http://www.wmberg.com/
  http://www.acklandsgrainger.com/
  http://www.grainger.com/
  http://www.onlinemetals.com/
  http://www.amqrp.com/
  http://www.princessauto.com/
  http://www.sherline.com/
  http://www.taigtools.com/

In Hardwired, Walter Jon Williams talked about CNC machines spitting out custom firearms.

It is already the case that one can, with some skill and difficulty, make a reasonable firearm using desktop machine tools.

Sherline, maker of the preeminent hobbyist desktop lathe and mill, is already shipping turn-key desktop CNC machines, based around linux boxes.

Technical Video Rental rents out DVDs on how to build firearms from scratch.

All these trends are accelerating, and about to converge.

In 20 years, no matter what the politicians say, gun control is going to be DEAD.

A linux box + a $1k three axis desktop mill + some scraps of steel + HEAP.sourceforge.net = downloadable firearms.

So what they are describing is an analog program, which translated directly into a motion pattern.

To understand what they are talking about imagine a lathe and imagine that you have to produce the same exactly part (a round table leg) over and over again. Now imagine you live in the 1870. Ok, so what do you do? Well, one obvious answer comes to mind:

Have the cutting bit placed on a rail that goes alone the cutting path. So basically it is a rail that is bent the towards the lathe where the part (table leg you are cutting) is narrower and is bent away from lathe where the part is wider.

This way, by just switching from one type of rail to another, you can make different parts that look exactly the same.

So something similar is happenning here, the movements of the cart depend upon some part with a special shape. Change this part for a different looking part and the robot will move in a different way.

So it is an analog programming device.