yes.
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:
Are there plans to make one on a GRMers budget with readily available parts that can be scavenged from old appliances?
We were talking about this at work the other day, the setup in the video is still somewhere north of $100k as far as I know...so probably not anytime soon! But, like anything else, give it a few more years of development...
In reply to Nick (LUCAS) Comstock:
no
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:
I said.. "Where was this when I owned a Jeep" when I first saw one.
Then I found this: http://www.cleanlaser.de/wEnglish/produkte/high-power-cl-1000.php and realized I'll never see one in my garage this decade.
Looked into it, rig costs something like $250k and up depending on options.
Here's a pretty good description on how it works. I have no idea if it's accurate but it seems like the person knows what they are talking about: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4a4r2p/how_do_the_lasers_that_remove_rust_work/
AugustusFink-nottle said: They work by laser ablation. Basically, the laser is bright enough and focused enough that anything that absorbs the light strongly will get heated to a plasma. A CO2 laser can put out ~1000 watts of power in the infrared (10 µm) that can be focused to a strip or spot smaller than a millimeter. A material that absorbs at that wavelength will be heated very quickly. At lower powers you can use this for laser engraving. But for rust removal you can dump enough heat into the rust to heat it to a plasma. Now, why doesn't the laser continue to burn away the iron underneath the rust? Because metals reflect light very well, especially in the infrared. I found this plot showing how at 10 µm even iron makes a very good mirror. So once the rust burns off, the laser reflects off the iron rather than heating it up.
I saw another video from a different person and they showed it going across their hand. They didn't leave it on their bare hand but did a pass about the same speed as in the video.
RossD wrote: I saw another video from a different person and they showed it going across their hand. They didn't leave it on their bare hand but did a pass about the same speed as in the video.
So it provides safety from "oops" moments, but potentially not a "hold my beer, watch this" endeavor? 
In reply to iadr:
My understanding is that the surface still needs further prep for decent paint adhesion, but I don't know much more than that.
I'd guess it's similar to the edge of a laser cut part, not really a scale like hot rolled stock, more like a thin film of burnt/oxidized stuff (not sure what is really is in terms of chemical makeup, just using those terms descriptively.) If that is indeed the case, powder and paint don't like to adhere to it and media blasting is generally needed.
This kinda shows what I'm talking about, although its a bit hard to see the different color compared to the unaffected metal. My Google-Fu is letting me down at the moment.
It's only a matter of time till someone on intructables.com makes one from an old dvd drive.
It is also used for paint removal, those wacky Germans!
That looks like it could kill you very easily.
I look forward to them being mounted as an option on LaserWash car washes
Why am I thinking 'you'll put your eye out, kid'.
That contraption made me think of a portal gun...
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