CT1 / CT2 · Kent
3D printing in Canterbury
Almost everything Canterbury orders has a date attached: a lab deadline, a teaching term, an exhibition opening. The question is rarely what it costs; it is whether it can be on a bench by Thursday.
Canterbury's economy runs on three universities and a year-round visitor trade, and both halves generate printing work with a date attached.
The University of Kent, Canterbury Christ Church and UCA between them produce a constant flow of prototyping: final-year product design, research rigs, laboratory fixtures, spin-out hardware and production pieces for the Marlowe. Much of it is ordered by a department, a technician or a purchasing office against a deadline that will not move, which makes lead time the whole specification. Almost everything goes by post (first class for small parts, tracked courier for larger) and collection from Folkestone is worth the trip when a date is close, because it takes a full day out of the timeline.
The other customer sits inside the ring road: a dense run of independent retail, hospitality and gallery businesses that buys display and fit-out hardware in tens rather than thousands and cannot wait six weeks for it.
Canterbury's economy runs on three universities and a year-round visitor trade. The University of Kent, Canterbury Christ Church and UCA between them generate a constant flow of prototyping work: final-year product design, research rigs, laboratory fixtures, spin-out hardware and Marlowe Theatre production pieces: much of it ordered by a department or a technician against a fixed date. Around the ring road sits the other customer: a dense run of independent retail, hospitality and gallery businesses inside the walls that buys display and fit-out hardware in tens, not thousands, and cannot wait six weeks for it.
Mostly deadlines
- University labs and technicians
Research rig components
Sample holders, optical mounts, sensor housings, cable management and the one-off fixtures no laboratory supplier lists. PETG or PETG-CF where the part has to stay dimensionally stable through a run of measurements.
- Design courses and spin-outs
Product design prototypes
Enclosures, housings, form models and the physical proof that a design works. Print one, find the problem, revise, print again: most projects need two or three rounds of that loop, which is why leaving it until the week before submission goes badly.
- Theatre and production workshops
Set, prop and mould-pattern pieces
Prop detail, breakaway components, casting patterns and repeat props in batches. Printed matte so stage lighting does not catch the layer lines, and split where a piece exceeds the 256 mm envelope.
- City-centre retail and galleries
Display and fit-out hardware
Stands, risers, sign letters and bespoke mounts in short runs, printed to suit the product rather than the fixture it sits on.
- Collections and visitor operations
Handling replicas and case mounts
Copies visitors can hold and cradles that support an original safely in a case, made to the shape of one specific object rather than bought in.
Posting to Canterbury, and planning around a fixed date
First-class post for small parts and tracked courier for larger ones, both charged at cost. Parts go out the day they finish, and collection from Folkestone is available for anything urgent.
Plan backwards from the date and add a week. Standard turnaround is three to five working days, a revision is another cycle, and post is a day on top. Express at 48 hours exists and next-day is sometimes possible, but paying a 50% surcharge to correct a planning gap is an expensive habit.
Departmental and business customers are invoiced rather than paying up front, and we are not VAT registered, so the quoted figure is the figure on the invoice. Every file gets the same check and the same confidentiality: nothing is shared, published or reused.
Picking a material for a project rather than a product
For a form model or a fit check (which is most early-stage work) PLA is right: cheapest, crispest, easiest to sand and paint. Print the first version in PLA even if the finished product would be something else, because at that stage you are testing geometry, not durability.
Change material once the geometry is settled and you need to test behaviour: PETG for toughness and heat, ASA for outdoors, TPU where something must genuinely flex, PETG-CF for stiffness under load. Prices per kilogram for every filament are published, so a material change can be costed into a project budget before it is committed.
For laboratory work, two limits matter. Typical FDM tolerance is around ±0.3 mm, so a printed fixture is not a replacement for a machined one where a controlled fit is part of the measurement. And printed parts are porous at the layer boundaries, which rules them out of anything requiring cleaning to a standard.
Every filament we stock, with the price per kilogram and what each one is actually for, is listed on the materials page. If you are not sure which one a Canterbury job needs, tell us where the part lives and what it has to survive.
Service area
Canterbury to the workshop, and back
Canterbury is 17 miles from the machines by road, north-north-west up the A2. Everything is printed in Folkestone and travels out from there. There is no second site and no subcontracting, which is why a reorder six months later comes off the same machines with the same settings.
- Elham, CT4, 9 miles by road from the workshop, north-north-west of Folkestone.
- Ashford, TN23/TN24, 16 miles by road from the workshop, west-north-west of Folkestone.
- Deal, CT14, 16 miles by road from the workshop, north-east of Folkestone.
- Canterbury, CT1/CT2, 17 miles by road from the workshop, north-north-west of Folkestone.
Questions from Canterbury
Three things businesses here ask first
Standard is three to five working days from the file being agreed, plus a day for post.
Express at 48 hours and next-day printing are available with a surcharge. The honest advice is to send the file a week earlier than feels necessary, because most projects need a second version and almost nobody plans for it.
Yes, every time. We look at wall thickness, overhangs, hole sizes, orientation and whether the part will survive being printed at all.
If something looks wrong we tell you before we run it rather than after. That check is included in the price, not an extra.
Yes. Files are never shared, never reused and never published.
The instant quote tool analyses your model inside your own browser. The file is not uploaded anywhere unless you choose to send it with an order.
There are more answers on the frequently asked questions page, the full pricing model is written out on the pricing page, and what we will and will not take on is set out on the capabilities page.
What we can print for a business in Canterbury
Iterate in days
Rapid prototyping
Hold the revision before you commit to tooling, a supplier or a production run. First iteration on the plate within one working day of the file arriving.
From £30.00
10 to 200 units
Small-batch production
Repeat runs of ten to two hundred identical parts from one held file, with no tooling bill and a per-unit price that steps down at 5, 10, 25 and 50 units. Small-batch 3D printing for UK businesses, printed in Kent and posted anywhere.
From £30.00
Shop-floor tooling
Jigs, fixtures & tooling
Drill guides, assembly fixtures, alignment jigs, gauges and mounts, made to the dimensions of your bench rather than to a catalogue's.
From £30.00
Discontinued components
One-off & replacement parts
The component that failed on a machine the manufacturer stopped supporting. Measured with callipers, corrected where the original was weak, and reprinted.
From £30.00
£42 per hour
3D design & CAD
For businesses with an idea, a sketch or a sample but no model. £42 per hour, quoted against an estimate before work starts, and you own the files.
£42.00 per hour
Nearest areas to Canterbury
Every area page covers a different local trade. The service area index lists all 14, with distances, postcodes and how parts reach each one.
Next step
Drop an STL or 3MF into the quote page and you get a price and a lead time straight away. The file is read in your own browser: it is not uploaded unless you send it with an order, which matters if the drawing is confidential.