Prototyping & commission work

The part you can't buy any more

Most of what we make doesn't exist yet. A bracket that snapped and isn't sold separately. A housing for a board you designed. A badge for a client's shopfront. If you can describe it or hold it, it can usually be printed.

Start a quote See past work

Where we're useful

Four situations that come up again and again. Yours may not be on the list — send it anyway.

Replacement parts

A knob, clip, bracket or cover that failed on something otherwise fine. Manufacturer wants you to replace the whole unit, or stopped stocking the part a decade ago.

Measured from the broken original where possible
PETG for anything structural, outdoors or warm
Printed in pairs so you have a spare

Branded items for business

Keychains, tags, counter displays and giveaways carrying your logo. Two-colour printing means the branding is part of the plastic, not a sticker that peels.

Logo vectorised and modelled as a raised profile
Sculpted detail and lettering refined in Blender
Separate bodies per colour on the CFS
Batch runs with consistent finish

Prototypes & test fits

Before you commit to a mould or a machinist, hold the thing. Cheap iterations, days not weeks, and dimensions you can verify with callipers.

Parametric models — resize without starting over
Tolerance test prints for press and clearance fits
STEP files supplied for downstream manufacture

Scan to print

When the geometry is organic or too complex to measure, we photograph it from every angle and rebuild it as a mesh, then clean that into a printable model.

Photogrammetry capture, no scanner hire
Mesh cleanup and watertight repair in Blender
Retopology before it goes back into CAD
Works on curved automotive trim and castings

A recent repair

A replacement part from start to finish: broken original in, working part out.

Repair · Replacement part

Vinyl cutter blade holder

Use the thumbnails to compare the broken original with the printed replacement.

Snapped arm, working cutter again

The plastic blade holder arm on a vinyl cutter broke clean through, and the rest of the machine was fine. Rather than replace the whole assembly, we remade the arm.

Measured off the two broken halves
Redrawn as a new model with the clamp slot, blade bore and pin hole to size
Printed in black PETG for stiffness with a little give
Original thumbscrew and steel pin reused

See more in the gallery

What it costs

No fixed price list, because no two jobs are the same size. Here's what actually drives the number, so a quote isn't a surprise.

Material	Grams of filament on the plate. Big solid parts cost more than big hollow ones — infill is a lever we can pull together.
Printer time	Hours on the bed. A tall detailed part can run overnight; a keychain takes twenty minutes.
Design time	Zero if you send a ready STL. Otherwise, the hours to model it. This is usually the biggest line on a first-off job — and it's a once-off, since reprints reuse the model.
Quantity	Ten of something costs well under ten times one, because the design work is already done and the plate runs full.
Finish	Straight off the printer is free. Sanding, priming or painting is extra time.

Send the details and you'll get a firm number before anything starts. No deposit taken until you've agreed the quote.

Materials

Two workhorses cover nearly everything. We'll tell you which one your part wants — and say so if 3D printing is the wrong answer entirely.

PLA+

Stiff, dimensionally accurate, takes fine detail and paint beautifully. The right pick for display pieces, figures, prototypes and anything living indoors.

Avoid for: anything left in a car, in direct sun, or under sustained load. It softens with heat and creeps.

PETG

Tougher, more temperature tolerant, slightly flexible instead of brittle. The default for outdoor gear, automotive parts, and anything that gets handled hard.

Avoid for: fine crisp detail and smooth paint finishes — it's glossier and stringier than PLA.

When we'll tell you not to print it

Load-bearing suspension components, anything structural under vibration and heat, parts where failure means someone gets hurt. Printed plastic creeps and fatigues in ways machined metal doesn't. We'd rather point you at a machinist than sell you a part that lets go.

How it works

Tell us what you need

Upload an STL, OBJ or STEP file if you have one — or send photos, measurements and a description.

We quote and confirm

You get a price, a material recommendation and a realistic timeline before anything is printed.

Print, then collect or ship

Collect in Bela-Bela or have it couriered anywhere in South Africa.

Request a print