Will today’s 3D printer startups follow the path of the machine tool industry?

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Each day it seems another 3D printer manufacturing company has opened its doors and is busy advertising its wares. I’m not naming names, but many of these are FFF (fused filament fabrication) printers, machines that are relatively easy to construct and, given the wide array of filaments now available, provide a relatively easy point of entry for an entrepreneur aiming to become the next Stratasys or Ultimaker.

The question is, how many of these startups will still be around in 10 years? Or even five?

As a young machinist, I would leave work on Friday afternoons and visit the used machinery dealer in downtown Hopkins, a Minneapolis suburb near where I lived. I wandered the dimly lit aisles, inhaling the oily, dusty smells while searching for an engine lathe and a knee mill with which I could start my own machine shop.

There were Cincinnatis and Bridgeports, of course, as well as endless Brown & Sharpes, Bullards and Bridgeports, Dakes and LeBlonds, Kingstons, Clausings, and Lansings.

I ended up with a Logan lathe and Gorton fixed-head jig mill. Though good machines in their day, both were tired. They did, however, fit within my meager budget.

My visits to the machine tool graveyard notwithstanding, practically all of those brands are long gone, as are my two erstwhile investments. A few have been resurrected—Cincinnati’s making a go of it, and Bridgeport, now owned by Hardinge, is reportedly building machines in the U.S. once more. But most were swallowed up by their competitors, never to be seen again.

That was nearly 40 years ago. It seems to me we’re at a similar point in time, with all the 3D printing companies that are being bought or merged. I doubt, though, that anyone will one day open a used 3D printer dealership, or that any of the printers currently making parts will still be doing so when Kip has moved on to the machine tool graveyard.

As Brooks said in the movie Shawshank Redemption, “The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.” But that’s progress, I suppose.