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3D Printing question


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I'm looking at a car that is missing one of the headlight surround pieces. The remaining piece could serve as a template. It is a chromed metal, but plastic would pass for the real part. I'm guessing the dimensions would be something like 12" x 5" with a maximum depth of 3". Can such a piece be 3D printed? Does anyone locally do such work? What does a piece such as that cost? I'm assuming that finding an original part on the junk auto parts market that's in good condition would be nearly impossible, thus I'm asking the question about 3D.

 

Driver's side surround is missing:

160416822176d939FD7E6662_1233_461A_B67B_8A92DE398977_scaled.jpeg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

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that's a 1964 Cadillac, finding a nice bezel on ebay is pretty cheap and easy.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1964-Cadillac-Head-Lamp-Door-Bezel-/402266566744

 

A lot of those parts are stainless and they survive the car after rust got the rest. I think the headlight bezels are actually chromed pot metal so they pit but don't rust.

 

as for your 3d printing question there are significant challenges which would make it cost prohibitive:

 

- The size of the part is large. I have one of the larger home printers and at 310mm X 310 mm for the bed I couldn't print that piece as one unit. It would have to be 2 or 3 pieces glued together. So you are looking at paying an industrial printer to print it for you and that requires a job quote (for an already existing file I am going to guess in the $200 range).

 

- It's a polished piece, which means you need special metal impregnated filament that can be polished. It's also not cheap and probably would never look "right". It's $40 a roll before you even load it into the printer.

 

- Then there is the modeling time. You would need to find someone who is willing to make a 3d model copy of the part. Ideally if someone worked at OSU they could use OSU's 3d scanner to make a base model and then tweak it. Otherwise it's like 60 hours for someone to build the model from scratch.

 

I just don't see it feasible when a decent one on ebay is between $20 and $100.

 

 

FWIW, while I am sure it is a nice car, The one to the right of the picture is a pillarless hardtop 4dr. This means when all the windows are down it looks like a hardtop coupe (no B-pillar) and to me that's a much nicer car than what looks like the series 75(?) that you are looking at. Unless you like the 60's chauffeured limo look, then by all means carry on.

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Thanks for the input. I had assumed that since the car's in such good repair, a replacement part must be difficult to find or else the current owner would have already replaced it.... bad assumption. I hadn't done a part search yet, thanks for getting me pointed in the right direction.

 

Thanks for the detailed info, Kerry. There's so much there that's new to me.

 

Yes, the 75 series is awkward in a number of its design elements and proportions, but I've always been drawn to the Caddy factory limos (vs. coachbuilt versions), and the 1964 is my favorite. This one is the 75 Sedan vs the 75 limo, which is pretty rare and allows driver's seat adjustment. The divider glass on the limo fixes the driver seat, which wouldn't work for me.

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Yes, the 75 series is awkward in a number of its design elements and proportions, but I've always been drawn to the Caddy factory limos (vs. coachbuilt versions), and the 1964 is my favorite. This one is the 75 Sedan vs the 75 limo, which is pretty rare and allows driver's seat adjustment. The divider glass on the limo fixes the driver seat, which wouldn't work for me.

 

no worries, it's all a matter of preference. the Series 75 does have one of my favorite design features on any car: a door opening that cuts into the roof to allow more headroom when entering. in the 1964 GM lineup only the top of the line Caddy and the corvette did that at the time.

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