3D unprinter

There's been a lot of buzz about 3D printing - justified, in my opinion, but maybe not for the reasons people think. Obviously, additive manufacturing opens up a lot of possibilities that the subtractive equivalent isn't capable of. But actually I think the community and the attitude that has appeared around 3D printing is more important than the technology itself.

With a little effort, we could have the same revolution in CNC routing. Machines right now tend to be big and expensive, and they don't have the same DIY community support, but there's no reason that has to be the case. We could make DIY router parts out of other parts, share designs, interoperate with standard model files and design better software for novices to use.

If we did this, I think it would become much more obvious that the glorious future of home DIY manufacturing can't be realised with 3D printing alone, for the very same reason it was invented in the first place: some things are easier to create additively, and some subtractively.

Maybe at some point we'll even have a desktop-sized combined printer/cutter. That would really be something.