Thanks everyone - I had a time out break at the beach today and did some soul searching and nutted out a game plan of sorts.
I am not quitting the 3D printing as I enjoy the possibilities of it and like Marty suggested I still aim to do things with it and hopefully earn a little bit of pocket money and get myself a pin in the near future once I get a job as I do really enjoy them. Like Gav and others have said somethings take alot of effort and I agree but not when my family are looking at me for the support. So I have to invest more energy into looking for a job and only once I have one will I tinker and create mods more for the enjoyment, as I really do enjoy the inventing and creating side of things. It's just not viable at a critical time as another 6 months and we might have to consider selling the home and that is stressful thinking about that.
So hopefully 2014 improves rapidly and then I can consider the odd reproduction item and a mod here and there.
Sorry if I have disappointed anyone but have to be selfish at this point of time.
See below my other creation - my own 3D printer which is a robot spider arm type (Delta) which are super fast, running on linear bearings vertically and self levelling as it is amazing the amount of lost time in poor prints from the first layer not being spot on with in 0.10mm. You never know I might get a job and then have an army of printers pumping out repro parts and mods. I am actually building 2 machines as while I was getting parts for one I thought may as well double up and save on postage - so in the near future I could have 3 machines running which will help in lowering the cost of parts. All the orange parts are printed to give you a ideal of what I have also been doing the last few months.
Anyway thanks for the support and understanding and I will still be around but modding will not a high priority (more as a relaxing hobby) though I have a few cool CFTBL ones in my head to be worked on in the future as well as a very cool car idea for the Stern Mustang but more importantly will be used my custom pin one day
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Lastly there are a few items soon to be released and available soon through Shapeways if anyone is interested:
- the Bally Fathom ball launch arm is almost done but waiting on fitting and feedback to fine tune and release
- Stern coin slots - final fit changes - very close
- Williams coin slots that I thought were bally's, just waiting on feedback of sizing.
- Small Rollover buttons - waiting on fit testing and then they will be released
So you AP guys know who you are if you can help and do the testing that will help some of my efforts be worthwhile so at least they are available for people to buy. I am also able to make bally shrouds, emtallica croses to order and still have a heap of the AC/DC bell block covers in the 5 designs in stock.