HaveBlue has also been testing the "marketplace" for 3-D printing weapons. To
do this he asked Thingiverse, the 3-D
design sharing site run by Makerbot Industries, whether it was permissible to
post weapons designs or not. According to HaveBlue, Makerbot's senior leadership
decided to not disallow, but to discourage, the posting of weapons designs.
Haveblue then posted a design for an AR-15 part on Thingiverse, but in the
intensive legal discussion that followed Haveblue's posting, Thingiverse decided
to ban weapons designs outright. However, since Haveblue's design is still on the site,
it's unclear whether Thingiverse is enforcing a ban or not.
An amateur gunsmith, operating under the handle of "HaveBlue" (incidentally, "Have Blue" is the codename that was used for the prototype stealth fighter that became the Lockheed F-117), announced recently in online forums that he had successfully printed a serviceable .22 caliber pistol. Despite predictions of disaster, the pistol worked. It successfully fired 200 rounds in testing.