Mad’s 3D printer (”rapid prototyping machine”, to use a mouthful), can print objects in ABS plastic from a 3D file such as may be generated from 3D studio Max. This shows the printer at work. It lays down 6 thou layers at a time using the white ABS material, while filling any voids with the brown “support” material. This brown material is fairly fragile, and can be partially broken out, before the entire unit is dunken in a bath of a sodium hydroxide solution where all the brown is dissolved.

This is the “finished product” as it comes out of the printer, and you can see that this is just a single piece, built on top of a layer of support material.

The adjustable spanner we’re producing here is made in one part, but once all the support material is gone, the three actual parts (the handle, leadscrew and moveable section) separate out, and you end up with a fully function tool as shown below.