Did Karman save the tooling for the 914, Like the Brits did? Options

[worn]

I have a Triumph TR6 and my son has an MGB. British Heritage makes all of the body panels (I had to replace about half the sheet metal on my car) and reportedly obtained the dies by tracking them down after the collapse of British Leyland. What happened to the corresponding 914 dies after production ceased?

[bkrantz]

Since I have no real knowledge, I can speculate about some future tech, with detailed 3D scanning of NOS or straight donor car parts, 3D printing of low-volume dies, and then inexpensive (?) stamping of limited run panels. Sounds easy! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smash.gif)

[Mark Henry]

Since I have no real knowledge, I can speculate about some future tech, with detailed 3D scanning of NOS or straight donor car parts, 3D printing of low-volume dies, and then inexpensive (?) stamping of limited run panels. Sounds easy! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smash.gif)

That's pretty well is what RD does now, except for the die is cut on a CNC mill.
One of the things that costs money when making a die is the hundreds of hours of hand polishing the die. The dies must be polished and perfect. RD can pump out the dies faster than they can polish them, any given day you can go to RD and there's at least a couple of dozen dies waiting to be polished.
All 3D printed objects I've seen, including the 3D printed Porsche pistons, stiĺl need machining or polishing. 3D metal printing tech (on this scale) isn't something that will be affordable for at least another 10- 20 years.

[wonkipop]

Since I have no real knowledge, I can speculate about some future tech, with detailed 3D scanning of NOS or straight donor car parts, 3D printing of low-volume dies, and then inexpensive (?) stamping of limited run panels. Sounds easy! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smash.gif)

That's pretty well is what RD does now, except for the die is cut on a CNC mill.
One of the things that costs money when making a die is the hundreds of hours of hand polishing the die. The dies must be polished and perfect. RD can pump out the dies faster than they can polish them, any given day you can go to RD and there's at least a couple of dozen dies waiting to be polished.
All 3D printed objects I've seen, including the 3D printed Porsche pistons, stiĺl need machining or polishing. 3D metal printing tech (on this scale) isn't something that will be affordable for at least another 10- 20 years.

yes, very true, cnc milling was the last big practical breakthrough between computers and metal. along with laser cutting. really sped things up and went into the realm of super accuracy.

most of what i see as printed metal objects are quite crude as you note. i wonder about the metalurgical properties of printed metal?
perhaps a bit like printed concrete, which is basically a coiled (IMG:style_emoticons/default/stromberg.gif)

the japanese may be on to something at nissan. they are masters of steel, been making swords for thousands of years. the robot machine nissan made was for want of a better word massaging the steel. it was kind of pressing the steel into shape with a point contact on both sides. if you could feed in a scanned shape, theoretically its the kind of tech that might make the jump a bit like a laser cutter or a cnc machine.