When Bill Maher belatedly learned 3D printers would be able to produce plastic guns that were fully operational but untraceable, he impetuously suggested we ban all plastic, which showed an ignorance of both the printers and of society in general, which would grind to a halt if the material was suddenly banished.

Misunderstandings about the machines aren’t without precedence: In the 1970s, those who half-interestedly glanced at the windows of a Byte Shop probably thought personal computers might be good for saving recipes or doing light bookkeeping, but it’s not likely the majority divined the breadth of the PCs’ applications. 3D printers are in an analogous position today. They may be Etsy-ready tools, but the truth is they’re positioned to revolutionize manufacturing and medicine.

In a WSJ column, Christopher Mims explains how carbon-fiber 3D-printing can deliver the “strength of metal for the cost of plastics.” An excerpt:

Not long ago I held the product of such a potentially game-changing technology in my hands—a small, intricately detailed component for a valve. It looked like the shell of a nautilus from an alien planet. With its combination of lightness, strength and finish, the component felt very much like the future. And not just the next five years, but the next 50.

The object I held was unusual for two reasons: what it was made of, and how it was made.

It was made of carbon fiber, a man-made material used in airplanes, race cars and wind turbines that is stronger, ounce for ounce, than steel or aluminum. But it is expensive, and surprisingly labor intensive to make, requiring workers to cut, layer and mold sheets of plastic infused with carbon fiber—an oddly 18th century approach to making a 21st century material.

This carbon-fiber component had been made on a 3-D printer, a gadget more often associated with spitting out plastic novelties.•