OK, have a couple 51 Frazers and have noted other threads that considered making new taillight lens and the limited scope and tooling cost was prohibitive. Understood. Last night had an AH- HAA!! moment. New 3-D Printer technology uses a resin bath or solution and a laser or similar energy catalyst or even plastic deposition to build real items from computer graphics files or scans or engineered drawings. SO, would someone in the club familiar with the technology investigate if a media exists suitable for making lenses- tailight red and marker clear. Also will the result weather well and survive temperature extremes. Now develop a cost if the media exists to buy a low end ( slow ) printer. If this will work, we would want NOS lenses to scan and develop a file of stock items. Order is placed with manufacturing fund and ANY YEAR, ANY MODEL lens can be made- to order or small batch inventory. May even be better to contract out rather than buy a printer. I may still be dreaming but this sounds too good and easy to be true. May even be a business plan option for someone to meet the market niche for all makes for low volume lens replacements where stocks have dried up. Or custom lenses ( yeah Federal law concerns ) that are built on a standard mounting base but are new shapes. or logo or initials moulded in or even shaped like an animal head or a person's face. Thoughts? OH, and what about knobs and interior trim pieces from opaque plastics? Could this even be used to build a new steering wheel around a clean steel core? High strength plastics to form new taillamp or signal lamp housings that are then plateable plastic where the original potmetal or steel is too bad or good cores are gone? Enough said- Thoughts?
