Make plastics at home with Thing-O-Matic

Have you ever wanted to design stuff in plastic and churn it out in the privacy of your own home? Now you can buy your own 3D-printer and produce models to your own spec in shiny fresh ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), according to articles on every techie blog in the world today.

The Thing-O-Matic was unveiled this weekend at the huge Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For a mere $1,225 (£788) you can have your own DIY version of a polymer moulding machine, which you connect to your computer via USB, then use the MakerBot Replicator G software to create 3D models of yo8ur designs.

For petchem folk, this is really taking your work home with you.