I’m still working with 3D Printing (additive manufacturing) as my major source of entertainment. It’s not the 3D Printing itself that I enjoy the most. It’s the design phase. That’s where human creative effort is expended.

My hobby is taking the conception of an item or component and turning it into a tangible item.  This includes and requires creating the instructions for a fully (or mostly) automatic additive creation process. The 3D printer

The 3D printing is all automated. I enjoy watching the starting movement, but only to the point of making sure nothing is going wrong.  After that, it is all pure automation, and no human assistance is required.

When the printing process is complete, I have the tangible item that I first imagined. The 3D printer was a tool used in the process. Not the hobby itself.

The printed part may be a component of a larger assembly of component parts

I am not defining as an absolute what “making something” requires. It’s a process that requires explanation of everything involved to be fully understood.

I like to tie the design effort as a preface to the actual “make” process. Then further divide the “make” into human effort and full computer AI (Artificial Intelligence) automation.

It’s like the hobby (or business) of photography. It’s the making of a vision into a tangible item such as a printed photograph, or today, a digital file. The hobby is not the camera but the use of the camera as a tool in the process of photography.

A camera hobby could describe the collecting of many cameras as a presentation (of tools) to be admired but seldom used to create photos.

There is nothing wrong with that. But a hobby of collecting cameras is not photography. Collecting hammers may let you pound nails but is not the same as building a house. Ha!

Point made. I won’t sharpen it any farther.

My main enjoyment is in the design of a craft project. The next interest is how to make what I have designed. 

Almost all of my projects involve the use of CNC (Computer Numeric Control) of machine tools. 

I have a shop full of electrical powered machine tools. Both hand operated and CNC operated. Materials can be wood, metals, wax and plastics. 

3D Plastic items can be formed using light cured resins and/or FDM extruded filament layered printing. (3D printing).

Wax can be 100% hand shaped with hand held tools. (e.g. – saw, knife, rotary hand burr, files, scrapers.) Or shaped by using a 3 or 4 axis CNC milling process. Wax is then Lost Wax process cast into a metal part.

Raw metal stock is either hand or CNC shaped by lathe turning and 3 or 4 axis milling.

Wood items are formed with conventional hand and power (table and band) sawing. In my shop, wood planing is by hand.

I do not produce super detailed mechanical drawings for any of my hand process made items. A semi-detailed hand drawn sketch with critical dimensions is totally sufficient in a one person craft shop. I know my Idea vision and sometimes like to just work with the small details “on the fly”.

But CNC tools are a totally different environment. They demand absolute total instructional definitions. Some day the machine tool may incorporate the new FAD of AI (Artificial Intelligence) but that day will never be embraced by myself if it takes over the creative process.

II don’t even want the CAD (drawing) process to do my design thinking. Assistance like “draw a chamfer on all 90 degrees edges 1 mm radius ” is OK. But don’t take away basic design thinking.

Again, My main interest is in the designing process. I will not want a computer program to DO all my thinking. Just give me help with specific details when I ask for them. 

I will be watching where this AI “thing” may be headed. It’s probably the “future” for some industrial applications. A true “craft-person” will always want to keep the “person” in the creative process.

For me, no walking up to the “replicator” and asking for a three color 200mm tall vase with a handle. Wait 3 minutes (snap, crackle. pop), open door and remove newly designed and created vase.  No thank you. <G>