3D Printworx Scan-to-Part
Free 3D scanning and reverse engineering for selected replacement parts. If a component is discontinued, obsolete or impossible to source, and we believe other people are stuck with the same problem, we will cover the engineering. You pay for the part we manufacture.
Not sure it qualifies? Send it anyway. We would rather turn something down than miss it.
Recreating a component normally means four separate jobs — scanning, reverse engineering, design, printing — and the first two are most of the cost. When somebody needs exactly one part, that maths never works. It is why so many perfectly repairable machines get scrapped over a broken £15 clip.
But the expensive half only happens once. Once the digital model exists, making another one is just printing. So if we think the part has a life beyond your single order, we will invest in creating that model ourselves and recover it by selling the part again — to the next person searching for it at eleven at night, having given up on the manufacturer.
It is the same reason a niche part is viable at all here: nothing sits in a warehouse. It exists as data, and gets made when somebody orders one.
You pay for all four stages. Correct for a one-off, and we quote it happily — but for a single hinge it is rarely worth it.
We take on the scanning and reverse engineering. No separate engineering charge, and no upfront fee.
Two conditions, and they are the whole of it.
Not a huge market — printing on demand makes very small ones work. Things that suggest there is one:
These are useful evidence, not a checklist. You do not need an owners’ club or a spreadsheet of buyers.
The free programme gives you a physical part. CAD, STL, mesh and scan data are not included — that model is what lets us recover the engineering, and giving it away would end the programme within the year. If you need the data, we will quote it as normal reverse engineering.
What it is, what it came off, and photographs. Four minutes.
Discontinued, unsupported, or priced like a rare coin.
The question that decides most applications.
Feasibility, scanning approach, material, likely price, repeat demand, safety, IP.
At our cost, if we take it on. Scan, rebuild, print, check it fits.
The first customer pays for the component. That is the whole bill.
The next person who needs one just orders it — from stock or printed to order.
These are examples of the model, not limits on what we are looking for. The next one could come from a market we have never touched.
Replacement part
The problem: the original hinge stopped being available, and the plastic goes brittle and snaps.
What we did: recreated it and printed it in PA12 nylon.
What happened: it is now a product. Everyone since has simply bought one.
New product
The problem: nothing on the market fitted the frame.
What we did: scanned the bike and designed a box around its actual geometry.
What happened: around forty sold, to people with the same bike and the same gap.
This asks more of you than a contact form does, deliberately. We are deciding whether to spend a day of engineering time on your part, and the answers are how we decide. Four minutes, and the most useful thing you can tell us is why you think somebody else is looking for the same thing.
You will hear back either way, usually within two working days. If it is not right for the programme we will say so plainly and quote it the normal way instead — plenty of good jobs are simply one-offs.
Prefer to talk it through first? Ring 0330 229 0175 and ask for the engineering team.
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