Well the issue here is the printers will not touch copyrighted material. But im wondering if a badge from a defunct model is enough of a grey area...I will ask them also...just wondering if anyone knew how long copyright lasts on things like car badges.

G'day Dave,

I ended up laser cutting one and laminating the individual laser cut letters onto the base badge.

But silly me sold my guard badges so now I'm well and truly stuck with the JDM ones.

Can they really print in stainless steel? The machine at uni is a plastic one, I've used it for a few architectural models for uni. Truly amazing machines.

Yeah they truly are the wahy of the future. The process they use is called sintering where its SSteel powder mixed with a binder, then heat cured. Ive been looking into a company called Shapeways, they charge by the Cubic centermetre so its actually not bad price wise...tho their service seems to vary due to demand.
Its crazy trhat when I looked into this stuff about 3 years ago for my jewellery, machines were upwards of $50k now you can buy a kit version for your home for a bit over a grand!...still the resolution varies but imagine the applications...imagine what ou would save on packaging and distribution alone!

you have a dxf or other CAD version of the badge chris? would save a bit of time.

I work in .dwg

But can save to any filetype (well most anyway).

What are you using?

Yeah that should work, using Rhinoceros.

I was using Solidworks and 3d Printing with powder.. on a Z-corp printer..
made some wicked things.. :)

How much do you think a badge will cost Chris. And what numbers do you need to make up? What sort of money does it cost to make the pattern? Shoul chat to my boss about it.