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Perhaps you remember a story that we broke back in March, concerning a New Zealand man, named Lance Abernethy, who 3D printed the world’s smallest working power drill. Lance’s creation garnered him the attention of the international media, and apparently enticed him to continue his efforts of creating even more miniature working power tools.
Now Abernethy has revealed his latest creation, perhaps even more impressive than his previous. He has unveiled a miniature 3D printed circular saw, which he 3D printed on his Ultimaker 2 machine, after designing the individual parts using a software called Onshape. The parts were printed in PLA at a layer height of 21-40 microns and shell thickness of 0.5mm. The printing process took less than 1 hour to complete in total.
The miniature saw is printed in 4 pieces, including 2 halves for the main housing, a saw guard, plus a blade holder, just like your typical full size circular saw would have. It is powered by the same hearing aid battery that powers his miniature drill, and it has a button on the handle that turns it on.
“The saw was just a natural progression from the drill,” Abernethy tells 3DPrint.com. “I would like to be able to make a whole set of power tools just like my Makita set I have. I’m not sure how many I will get around to making though.”
While the saw operates like an actual full size circular saw, Abernethy says that it can not cut through anything at this point in time. Although he plans to iterate upon the design and create one that actually can cut in the near future.
“I also printed little brief cases for them to go in as you can see in the video (below),” Abernethy explained. “I actually made this a few months ago and will start making more stuff soon, once I get back into 3d printing. I will eventually get around to making something with parts people can easily buy and print, and then do a tutorial on how to make it.”
It should be interesting to see just what Abernethy comes up with next. Obviously this won’t be the last we see of him or his extremely minute creations. What do you think about the world’s smallest working circular power saw? What tools would you like to see 3D printed next? Discuss in the 3D Printed Circular Saw forum thread on 3DPB.com. Check out the video below.