[theelous3]

Considering lead's modulus of elasticity is essentially zero, yes :) You can drill, tap, and generally rely on this material to stay in the shape it was printed at in maaaaaany more situations than lead.

Of course the petg in there is a limiting factor, but even plain petg is an order of magnitude better than lead at retaining its shape under a wide range of loads. You can print gears for lathes in petg! And they last years! (If you're wondering why you might do this - it's a good idea to have a cheap point of failure on devices that have enough power to rip themselves to shreads.)

Not to mention this is only v1 of the material. We could see exotic plastics that are far more heat resistant like PEEK get a secondary filler for niche radioactive usecases.

[kragen]

https://www.matweb.com/search/DataSheet.aspx?MatGUID=ebd6d2c... says lead's modulus of elasticity is 14 gigapascals and https://www.matweb.com/search/datasheet.aspx?MatGUID=cb9580a... lists one variety of petg as having a modulus of elasticity of 2.2 gigapascals; i think you are confusing your material properties with one another

(at such low filler loadings the tungsten will change the modulus of elasticity very little)

petg does have higher yield stress than pure lead (53 megapascals vs. what https://nickelinstitute.org/media/1771/propertiesofsomemetal... says is 17 megapascals) but there are lead alloys that are in the same range of yield stress, including regular lead-tin solder. but they won't last if you try to make change gears out of them precisely because they're harder than petg

by the same token, though, i think you're going to get a lot of springback and long-term distortion out of petg you aren't going to get with lead