Our library has acquired a 3-D printer. They held a class the other day on how to design things and submit them to the printer. Printed items cost 10 cents per gram, which is very reasonable because the filament used in the printing is very light. There were items on display, one of which was a recorder (the musical instrument). It weighed 18 grams and I estimated that this would be similar to a printed drop spindle, so the cost would be about $1.80 for something like a printed drop spindle. The item that we ended up printing from the class that day was free, however.
I didn't end up printing a drop spindle because I thought it would have to be printed out in two pieces, so I decided on a lucet, which is a tool from medieval time used for making decorative cordage to put on clothing, etc.
I tried designing one, but didn't really have the time (the class was only an hour long, most of which was taken up with learning how to use Tinkercad, the design program). So instead I went to a recommended site (thingiverse.com) and found an already-made design for a lucet. I scaled it to what I thought was about 6 inches by 3 inches, but when it printed out it was half those dimensions. Don't know why exactly, but it actually works really well with some of my handspun silk, which is really fine.
So here is my lucet with the silk cord I'm making with some of my naturally-dyed, handspun silk:
Using a lucet is easy and brainlessly addictive. I'm really happy with my tiny tool. Next I'm thinking I might want to print out some needlebinding needles with the 3-D printer. You can only print two things out per month right now, which may be revised once they get a feel for what the demand will be like for the printer. I've also found already-made designs for spinning wheel bobbins. It's fun to think about applying this new tech to print out old tech tools!
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