Hard to Find Lego Pieces

AMANENS

Hello,

I have found that there are some hard to find lego pieces especially with items like gears (e.g. 60 tooth gear, banana gear etc.) When I am unable to find a piece I usually just print it from my 3d printer. I am wondering if there is a market for 3d printed Lego pieces. I am willing to print whatever pieces you would like. If you could let me know in a comment or just fill out my google forms: https://forms.gle/6PxNTqS8etcZ86kp6

Thanks!

AMANENS

40 tooth not 60 my bad.

Paperballpark

Most elements can be bought via Bricklink. I'm afraid I doubt that there would be much of a market for 3D printed parts - most of us tend to be Lego purists.

Astrobricks

I may be uninformed, but I’ve never seen 3D printed parts with the smoothness and accuracy necessary to match actual Lego.

CCC

Especially for gears, you'd need them to be produced with very high accuracy to work properly.

Personally, I prefer to design a model around what LEGO offers rather than use third party parts to fill in gaps. The only place I deviate from that is for minifigure accessories and parts.

Bobflip

What about those 3D printed monorail tracks that were on here a couple of years back?

While they were visually very different to the smooth surface of a new LEGO brick, I think they had the accuracy required for the engine to grip properly and the teeth are pretty small. They also designed and produced track pieces that LEGO didn't release.

pxchris

I think that monorail tracks are one of the few good examples of where 3D printed parts actually have a place in the community. If it's pieces readily available from Bricklink then no, sorry.

Bobflip

That's it, the tracks were rare, expensive, and limited. I'm not sure what the banana gear is but the 40 tooth gear isn't hard to find. I think reproduction pieces that have been cast rather than printed could work for the ones that are desired but rare or rare in certain colours, like the 3144 antenna or sand green macaroni brick. Outside of these kinda things, most of the customer base will be purists.