Why hasn't anyone reproduced the Tapper Tap handles?

haha, I don't want to come off sounding ungrateful, but I'm absolutely not interested in anything 3D printed. :)

Trying not to do my best Dennis Miller Rant impression on 3D printing, but do 3D printer owners buy them the same place Crossfiters and Vegans shop?
It sounds like you're just ignorant of today's 3D printing technology and methods. It's ok, you can yell at the 3d printers to get off your lawn :D

Edit: The current Bambu printers that others are echoing are very nice, and I wouldn't hesitate to print handles if I needed them.
 
It sounds like you're just ignorant of today's 3D printing technology and methods. It's ok, you can yell at the 3d printers to get off your lawn :D
LOL!

I mean in all seriousness we use them quite a bit in the Film industry. I'm just SICK of hearing about it as a be all to end all solution, especially when I start out by saying they need not apply. lol. One of my buddies got big into them when the Writers/Actors strikes went down, now it's all I see on my Facebook feed. You bring it up in the Sim Racing hobby and people LOOSE their fucking minds and go to war over them.

<Insert Animated gif of Clint Eastwood from Gran Torino Here>
 
LOL!

I mean in all seriousness we use them quite a bit in the Film industry. I'm just SICK of hearing about it as a be all to end all solution, especially when I start out by saying they need not apply. lol. One of my buddies got big into them when the Writers/Actors strikes went down, now it's all I see on my Facebook feed. You bring it up in the Sim Racing hobby and people LOOSE their fucking minds and go to war over them.

<Insert Animated gif of Clint Eastwood from Gran Torino Here>
Well, here is my suggestion.

You want it. You need it.

You can do it.

Look up a local machine shop. Call them and describe the product, and see if they are interested.

If you find a shop that is interested, provide them with:
Your printed or preferably original handles for a template (they may be able to 3D scan or measure it for the CNC program.)
The joystick shaft so they can cut the right threads
A bucket of money
The material you want to make it from (or ask for their suggestion)
How you want it finished (machined smooth, then anodized black for example).

And get some made.

You can be helpful to others and make some spares, but you may end up like me, with some Tail Gunner 2 spares on eBay for a year, and no buyers.
 
There are definite fanboys, and peeps do print real-world failures (i.e., shelving support brackets), but Tapper handles would be an excellent application for a 3D print.

If your printer sucks and leaves visible layers, a 1-2min acetone vapor bath clears that right up. No sanding necessary.
 
Provide them with:
Your printed handles for a template
The joystick shaft so they can cut the right threads...
Yeah see here in lies some of the problem, I'm not 100% sure the shafts on the Galaga sticks are the right size. and I KNOW these ones I bought a couple years back on eBay are garbage because they don't fit the repro labels at all. I even tried to recast them with inserts after slightly modifying them, but the end result was "meh" at best, and they still need to be threaded on to a cheap amazon joysticks with those dumb neon green 8/4/2 way restrictors. I'd much rather use actually tapper bases or the Galaga 2-way ones I have that I can modify.

At the end of the day, originals, or reproductions of originals are just better. And it's for my Wife, so I'm going for a higher standard here. :)

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Mold's looking great, BTW.


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Thanks, I made those back in Nov 2022, It was just a test mold and I didn't degass the silicone before pouring them. Regardless, I can make more, LOTS more, but like I said before having them as threaded tops kinda sucks. Plus these were the eBay ones I paid stupid money for only to find out they didn't fit repro label art and at that point this project then went and sat on the shelf in favour of finding actual ones or injection molded repros.
 
I'm not sure if these are still around, but you could ask.


Or these, which are the same.


Appreciate the links, but he's not shipping to Canada. "No exceptions".

Honestly, I'd have them made locally, but if someone out there already was doing injection molded ones then convincing them to do another run might be better than starting from scratch, especially since I dont have an actual one to take to a local shop here in Calgary and have them duplicated.
 
Appreciate the links, but he's not shipping to Canada. "No exceptions".

Honestly, I'd have them made locally, but if someone out there already was doing injection molded ones then convincing them to do another run might be better than starting from scratch, especially since I dont have an actual one to take to a local shop here in Calgary and have them duplicated.
I'm local. He can ship them to me.
 
Someone with CNC could.

The larger the volume, the better the price. Most of the cost is in setup and material.

We'd have to use billet aluminum.
I feel like thats a good path forward. I am with @ChanceKJ in that 3D print is almost always lame other than for testing phase. It always looks poor whether for parts or art builds. Im just not a fan. But I could get behind a totally metal solution that had the same form factor.
 
Are we 100% sure they aren't just some off the shelf part that's actually used on beer taps (with different art) ? A lot of times they didn't have the stuff custom made it was something that already existed. For instance the brake handle on Hang On is off an actual motorcycle, etc.
 
I mean, no... those are reeeallly tiny compared to any bar tap handle I've ever used/seen in the industry that would also incorporate a label. I can show them to a buddy of mine thats been in the business way longer than me, but I feel like they were just artistically based on actual tap handles, especially judging by how the stick shafts are imbedded into the plastic. Anything generic tap wise I've ever seen in the real world is more shaped like a small baseball bat.
 
The closet thing I can find with vintage Anheuser-Busch anything would be these, but they are massive.

The kicker here is that there are SO many hundreds of thousands of tap handles out there that it would probably be harder to find them than actual Midway sticks. lol



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The closet thing I can find with vintage Anheuser-Busch anything would be these, but they are massive.

The kicker here is that there are SO many hundreds of thousands of tap handles out there that it would probably be harder to find them than actual Midway sticks. lol



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Whats the thread you need? I got a line on some that may work perfectly. People were using them for home tap systems. The may need some sort of thread adapter, but it would be a step closer.
 
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