I am very interested in music and engineering, and for my senior project I wondered if they could be combined. I know how to use CAD and could model my own saxophone on it (at least the bell, could order keys for it), but I wondered if that was even possible? Has anyone made an instrument, and if so, did it work?
I've seen Whistles, and a 3D printed record for a kids record player. Something like a Saxophone would not be cheap.
That thread helped, and I know it wouldn't be cheap. I'm not sure how much people know about saxophones, but you can buy plastic alto saxophones so I was wondering if a 3D printed plastic tenor would be possible. It wouldn't have to be amazing, just to see what I could make.
I've known about this website for a year or so, I've never ordered anything though and I wasn't sure about what 3D printers were capable of.
What I would do is find one already modeled in 3D and then scale it and give it a wall thickness and then see what the volume comes out to. You'd be using Shapeways Strong and Flexible plastic and I'd guess that it would be around 4 to5 thousand USD.
It's definitely doable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qNQ5NobrAY Like @UniverseBecoming says, it'll be very expensive, but if your interested, search around for more from the guy in my link, Olaf Diegel.