Hi Mac;
I use a 3D Systems HiQ, Selective Laser Sintering station (SLS). It's an industrial printer, not what you'd find in a kid's bedroom. Although, any reliable printer is an excellent start. Your nephew will learn a lot about file creation or repair, maybe reverse-engineering, which is a challenge, but for me, very rewarding.
I work at Canada's National Research Council. I was with the Aerospace department for 10 years, and then suddenly transferred overnight, as government organizations will do, to the main machine shop. I thought this was a horrible demotion, but I wouldn't go back if you doubled my salary. Suddenly, I'm put in charge of a good 3D printer, and I've been the sole user of it for almost 10 years. I create parts for research projects of all types, mostly wind tunnel models, so my work is running the printer, but mostly designing and prepping parts to print. And as I mentioned, my interest in rev-enging Merlin parts has forced me to get to know the software better.
I don't use Solidworks, but a few years ago, that became the standard design software for our Design Office, replacing Pro-E, which I've also never used. I am self-taught in Rhino 3D software, which I found fairly intuitive and enjoyable. Self-taught means I might know 2% of the total software package, which means, I can still do a lot. Others laugh at me, but I'm glad I fit into an "experimental" group that has carte-blanche on tools that we use, such as Rhino, ancient CorelDraw and Corel Photopaint (still very useful), Spaceclaim, the main reverse-engineering software, and Magics, the printing file prep software.
So that's the Readers' Digest story of me. I had hoped to get my Merlin running, but I'm missing so many real parts and internals, that I will settle for sprucing it up to appear complete. My goal is to fool a Merlin expert. Still years to go on that, but most of the big parts are now done, and I consider a propeller and working hub as icing on the cake.
Good to talk to you, and best of luck on the Zero project. Please keep the forum posted on your progress.
Tom.