Basically let's take the basic ideas of tinkers and put it to a new level. Creating custom tools and armor from materials. This can fill the gap before modular armor.

• one multiblock (3D Printer)

creates an industrial looking 3d printer. insert plans and away it goes printing your item.

• one item type (filament)
  instead of having to deal with fluids and tanks.. just take ingots and blocks and convert them to a filament

• one multiblock (IDK a name for this yet)

takes a material and turns it into a filament material

• one block (Extruder)

required to input filament material into the 3d printer. can be made with different tiers that affect the speed of the filament material being injected into the 3D printer thus affecting speed at which item is printed.

• one block (workbench or something like that)

place to make plans for items.. breaking up items like a pickaxe into it's handle and the head? (idk the name)

• one item (plans)

could use mob drops or different recipe's to create plans for items, but the workbench should be required to make the plans in the end.

• multiple items

since each item would be broken down into parts.. then one would have to make an item for each material. like a bronze handle or a bronze blade, hilt, etc. this could even be better by basically taking the texture of the base item (say bronze) and making the end material for the 3d printer this texture. even better would be a config that allows a user to define the buffs, durability and stats of each item type as well as the ability to add new materials in the config.

• one block (belt sander)

when the item comes out of the 3d printer.. it should be very blocky.. and unusable. using a belt sander will smooth the item to fit the final shape.

3D printers often use PLA. Here’s the recipe: