Still not convinced about desktop manufacturing (DM)?  Here is an example of a project that I kicked out in a couple of  hours start to finish.  I bought an old bubble gum machine at the swap meet here in Arlington Saturday morning.  It dropped gum balls but the take money mechanism was shot on the inside.  I talked the seller down to $5.00 with the intent to fix it using DM.

It is all metal body with the glass globe and a few plastic movement pieces inside the globe to manage the gumballs into the hopper.  It is a nice little unit albeit manufactured in Taiwan.  When I took it apart it was quickly evident where all the trouble was.

This is the part that fits behind the crank.  The coin sits in the top slot in this orientation.  The interface with a ratchet to prevent the machine from turning in the other direction.  This came out in four pieces.  It was manufactured out of a really poor looking lead pewter.  What you see here is what I glued back together using hot glue to a copy paper backing.

What you see here is me bringing in the profile into SolidWorks 3D Design.  It is just a flat extrusion the full thickness of the part (there are no pokey ins or pokey outs here).

Here I am cutting away the parts that don't look like the finished product.

More pokey ins.

Adding the chamfers and fillets...

This took 25 minutes to print on an Afinia 3D printer.  It is approximately 2" in diameter.

Now I need to find some gumballs.....