I think this is the 3rd story that we have posted about 3D printing as much needed for airsoft,  as much as it is also needed in other industries. With 3D printing becoming more affordable, we made our case of the 3D Printer as a valuable and now low-cost tool to make airsoft parts, and even complete airsoft guns to maintain and preserve our hobby.

Airsoft models come and go, and even airsoft companies. If only those airsoft guns during the initial years of airsoft in Japan are still much widely available until now, then it won't be much an issue. As Optimus Prime always longs for the airsoft Calico to be back. With 3D printing we can even have those MGC and Asahi airsoft guns like new.

However, no company might want to produce such collector's items since these have become novelties and airsoft technology has already advanced. So collectors themselves will have to recreate these items when nobody else would.

This applies to discontinued models and the need for airsoft parts when no third party or even the original manufacturer have airsoft parts available for sale. It is indeed frustrating sometimes that spare parts are hard to come by. Thus, 3D printing for some is heaven-sent, no need to wait for someone to make spare parts, power-up the 3D printer, your computer, and load the CAD drawing, and off you go making that part your airsoft gun needs.

With our call for an AIRSOFT CAD or the Airsoft Computer Aided Design Depository, many agree that this is needed. Airsoft players from all over the world can get the spare parts designs for free. All they have to do is just download the spare part they want or even complete airsoft gun 3D designs if they want to become like another Killbucket with his amazing designs.

However, one problem that the AIRSOFT CAD will encounter is the lack of the 3D files needed to print out those parts. We want this to be an open source one, where everybody who benefits from the service also contribute something back. However, some may not have the CAD design skills or it's hard to find the original CAD file (if it's made available by the manufacturer).

The best way is to have 3D Scanner to reverse engineer designs and have their CAD files available. This was the case for an unnamed US Airsoft Company when it needed to retool after bringing back manufacturing to the U.S.  due to theft of tools and designs by their partner. However, this service is seen also as an expensive thing. And is a 3D scanner that can be affordable like 3D printers then the AIRSOFT CAD vision can become a reality. what you may have thought.

Indeed, that vision can be realised sooner than you think.

MakerBot, that same company that is pushing the 3D printing revolution with their Replicator 3D printers have announced that they will soon be releasing their desktop 3D scanning product called the "Digitizer". This will then even help push personal/desktop 3D printing to another level as it's easier for people to access 3D scanning to reverse engineer products and recreate the parts they need without the need for CAD drawing skills. This even makes replicating parts event faster.

For AIRSOFT CAD, this will make getting access to CAD files of parts even easier. Once the MakerBot Digitizer becomes available, then it will be easier to contribute design files to AIRSOFT CAD. You can use the same files for the 3D Printer or the CNC machine, replicating products can be easier (which can also be to the dismay of some companies).

At Popular Airsoft we would love the AIRSOFT CAD to become a reality. We sometimes, well, always, get emails from our readers where to get parts for their airsoft guns. And a lot of times, we don't know the answer to their questions. If we can just easily point them to AIRSOFT CAD and tell them to look for their airsoft part there, then we can help the our readers.

If indeed the MakerBot Digitizer gets released, we might create a project page at Indiegogo to request for funding from our readers to acquire this product and from there, we can create CAD files for airsoft players to download for free and allow others to contribute too. We hope you like this idea and pledge to making this project a reality.

We just hope MakerBot will release the Digitizer at the soonest possible time, the AIRSOFT CAD project will take off with this product.