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The local vintage radio club I'm in had someone do a presentation on 3D printing during the monthly Zoom meeting just this last weekend.
3D printing has a lot of potential, it is evolving constantly.
Printers for home use run from about $175 to $6000. Obviously the low priced units cannot do what the high end ones can do. Many printers can be modified and up-dated.
The fellow that did the presentation has about half a dozen printers of various types, some he hasn't finished assembling yet. He walked through designing and printing a radio knob. A somewhat complicated knob took him three six hour days to get the design right. The actual printing only took 45 minutes. Some printers now can create a smooth surface finish. I think he said he can use a resolution as fine as 0.05 mm or better. Several different plastics can be used.
A STL model file is run through a "slicer" program that converts the data into layers of the appropriate fineness for the particular printer.
There are a couple of ways to create a model file, CAD design from scratch, 3D scanning, and even convert a series of several 2D photographs from different angles.
Making something that was originally metal (like some pencilbox covers) would be difficult to do in plastic and have the same strength without making much thicker.
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