Business, inventors turn to 3-D printing

• Use of the 3D printers at Rockland Community College's 3D Smart Printing Lab in Haverstraw is free
• The State University of New York at New Paltz is 3D printing's local epicenter
• 3D printing is additive manufacturing because a heated nozzle deposits a substance on a platform
• Job ads for workers with 3D printing skills rose 1,834 percent in four years

Three-dimensional printing sounds like science fiction, but it's applied to old-fashioned trades like wood carving at Knickerbocker Bench in Congers.

"Once I came up with that basic design, I wanted to see what it was like if I changed angles. To do that in wood, even in miniature, is very time-consuming," said Tim Englert, whose company designed wood furniture at Congers Lake Memorial Park.

"Working in 3-D allows you to quickly explore your ideas."

Throughout the Lower Hudson Valley, businesses are starting to use 3-D printing to shorten their research, development, patenting and production times, saving money in the process and bringing new products to market more quickly.

That's what Marty Snider, president of MSA Products Inc. in Nyack, has been doing with the 3-D printers at Rockland Community College's 3D Smart Printing Lab in Haverstraw for free, thanks to a state grant.

Snider used to have his kitchen, bath and closet organizational products designed and turned into prototypes in China, then the samples were mailed back and forth until arriving at a finished product.

Now Snider has his engineers in China design products with a 3-D computer design software, then the files are emailed to him and taken to the Haverstraw printers.

"It had a major change in the way we're doing business. It basically enables us, at very low cost, to get into products that we wouldn't get into," said Snider about his company's move into plastic product prototypes that previously were too expensive to make locally. "We do in two or three days what used to take us two or three weeks."

Staffers at RCC's lab said helping local businesses become more competitive and succeed is the whole idea behind the 3-D lab.

"When I first came on (the) team, there was a lot of talk about economic development and small business and the need to them," said Michael Kluger, coordinator of RCC's lab. "I feel like I have a personal connection to getting every single one of these businesses in the Hudson Valley and Rockland to do a little bit better because it's going to help the entire region."

3-D printing is formally known as additive manufacturing because a small heated nozzle deposits plastic, metal or some other substance on a flat platform, slowly building up the object. The State University of New York at New Paltz is 3-D printing's local epicenter, and the region's officials are hoping 3-D printing will help lead a manufacturing resurgence.

"You have individuals with ideas and they often can't get that idea from the computer to an actual product," said Larry Gottlieb, executive director of the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp., whose 3-D initiative with SUNY New Paltz is designed to help the region's inventors and entrepreneurs. "It's been interesting to see these prototypes of cool products coming through the New Paltz machines."

Dr. David Hanswirth of Hanswirth Dentistry in White Plains used the New Paltz 3-D center to create a prototype for his company Revitabite, a beauty product that fits between the teeth and makes the face and neck look younger.

"We really didn't have to spend much and New Paltz gave us a great rate on prototyping that was much less for me than to hire someone to design. They're really friendly and easy to work with," said Hanswirth.

The technology has been around since the 1980s, but falling prices for 3-D printers combined with design, science and engineering programs at SUNY New Paltz that emphasize design, are leading to new manufacturing and job possibilities in the Hudson Valley.

Gottlieb, the former economic development director for Westchester County, noted a September article on Forbes.com citing Wanted Analytic's finding that job ads requiring workers with 3-D printing skills increased 1,834 percent in four years. It soared 103 percent from August 2013 to August 2014 alone.

Despite the promise of new 3-D printing jobs, there aren't enough people with the necessary computer-aided design and engineering skills to take the jobs.

"Even though they have this great printing center they don't have access to the engineers who know how to create these sophisticated CAD files," said Snider, who uses CAD designers in China. "There should be some incentives for students to start studying this stuff."

Gottlieb said SUNY New Paltz's new Engineering Innovation Hub is designed to address this regional shortfall. In September the school won a $10 million 2020 Challege Grant from the state to establish the engineering hub.

The region also needs to beef up its design savvy.

"One thing we do need more of are people in industrial design," said Dan Freedman, dean of SUNY New Paltz's Science and Engineering and director of the school's Hudson Valley Advanced Manufacturing Center. "That's an area we're beginning to think about where 3-D CAD and 3-D printing come together as a real program."

At the youngest end of the student spectrum, the Digital Arts Experience in White Plains is doing its part to inspire tomorrow's engineers and designers by offering class to elementary and middle school students in 3-D printing, JavaScript and other programming languages.

DAE president Rob Kissner said his students mostly printed novelty items the first six months after the 3-D printers arrived, but now the emphasis is on incorporating the technology with electronics and design.

"We just printed a prototype of a solar powered phone dock. I got a solar panel from Radio Shack, wired up a USB connector and modeled and printed a dock that the solar panel fits on top and the phone fits on top into and you can set it by your window and charge your phone with it. This is a much more practical use for a 3-D printer versus just printing the tchotchkes," said Kissner.

Kissner said local school districts are teaching 3-D design too late.

"It's usually an elective in high school. We start our 3-D printing classes with age 8, so we have the students learning beginning 3-D modeling software, modeling their own objects," Kissner said. "3-D printing on its own is essentially useless. The idea is to integrate that with other things."

Twitter: @ErnieJourno