Yeah, my son has one, he's into classic pinball restorations and is reverse-engineering replacement parts. He's found a market and a niche himself, but it takes him an entire evening to make a part that I could inject mold in under 10 minutes. Not counting the design time.
And as you see on the 70-tonner shot, I'm casting my own metal as well.
If I'm doing on-offs for myself I'd still rather just scratchbuild, and if I see something I think a lot of people might want, I'm going for mass etching and resin parts. I've had some truly wonderful resin shells show up, and then the oddball ones that warped, or that had a nice goey center from insufficient UV curing.
It's kind of scary the number of guys that have done little RP startups and then discovered it doesn't work as a cottage business plan. The guy that's done the best job of mixed media, in my opinion, is our own ATSFmodels Dirk. He's mixing printing, resin, and etched parts - each with their own physical properties advantage, and the results, well, are just outstanding. Everything I've got from him is just over the top, and he doesn't stick to just one approach.
