Manufacturing is returning here with a bang in a futuristic facility in Queens that could soon become one of the coolest places in the city.
Shapeways, a Dutch company, announced yesterday that it’s going to open the largest 3-D printing manufacturing facility in the world for individual customers on the second floor of an old factory building in Long Island City.
Noticing the dumbfounded looks of some elected officials who attended the ribbon-cutting, Mayor Bloomberg felt compelled to explain how 3-D printing works.
Specialized machines filled with one of more than 30 materials — from plastics to stainless steel to silver — produce real products from designs that anyone can create simply by adding “layer after layer after layer,” said the mayor.
“It is really one of the great transformations in this country and in this world,” he said. “This is the wave of the future.”
Shapeways co-founder Peter Weijmarshausen, who opened an office here in 2010, said his company plans to add 50 industrial-size printers to its 25,000-square-foot space and add 50 staffers to its 30-person workforce.
He said the firm intends to produce three to five million individual products a year once its fully operational, all customized.
“Even my mom, who is already in her 70s, makes her own set of napkin rings,” boasted Weijmarshausen.
“Be careful,” joked the mayor, who is 70 and conceded it’s taking him time to adjust to some of the latest fast-moving technology.