CT4 · Kent
3D printing in Elham
Almost every commercial building in Elham predates the idea of a spare part. Joiners and builders working under conservation conditions send us a broken casement stay or a missing escutcheon and ask for six of them, matched to the original.
Elham is a square of listed buildings around St Mary's with the trackbed of the closed Elham Valley Railway still legible in the fields either side. Almost every commercial premises here is listed or pre-Victorian, and that shapes the local trade: the businesses are the ones that maintain that stock: builders and joiners working under conservation conditions, letting and holiday-cottage operators, and the pubs and shops in The Square.
Their recurring problem is narrow and expensive. A compliant repair needs one fitting that matches a two-hundred-year-old original, cannot be bought, and would cost more in a pattern maker's time than the rest of the job. Printing solves that particular shape of problem better than anything else available, provided everyone is clear about where a printed part is and is not appropriate.
The vineyard and the holdings around the valley add a second, more ordinary line of work: the sort of small agricultural plastic that only makes commercial sense in batches of fifty.
Almost every commercial building in Elham is listed or pre-Victorian, which shapes the trade here: the businesses are the ones that maintain that stock: builders and joiners working under conservation conditions, letting and holiday-cottage operators, a vineyard, and the pubs and shops in The Square. Their problem is that a compliant repair often needs one fitting that has to match a two-hundred-year-old original and cannot be bought. Alongside that, the vineyard and the surrounding holdings order the sort of small agricultural plastic (trellis clips, post caps, netting fixings) that only makes commercial sense printed in batches of fifty.
Work for buildings that pre-date the catalogue
- Builders and joiners
Pattern-matched fittings for listed repairs
Casement stays, sash lifts, shutter pins, stair-rod ends and curtain-pole brackets: the small hardware a conservation officer notices when it is wrong. Modelled from the surviving original and printed to its geometry rather than to a modern equivalent.
- Property and letting managers
Discreet covers and service housings
Meter-box covers, alarm-sensor housings, cable entries and service plates that have to sit on a listed frontage without shouting. Printed in a matte neutral, or in a filament that takes paint so it can be finished to the render or the brick.
- Holiday-let maintenance
Window and shutter hardware
The parts that hold a two-hundred-year-old window shut. Where the original failed we thicken the section that cracked and add a fillet, because a faithful copy of a part that broke is a part that will break again.
- The vineyard and local holdings
Trellis clips, post caps and netting fixings
Batches of twenty to a hundred, in ASA for anything spending the year outdoors. Small, repeated, and exactly the quantity where tooling makes no sense and buying in is not an option.
Post, collect, or a run up the valley
Nine miles and twenty-five minutes. Small parts go first class, which for something the size of a casement stay is genuinely the fastest option available. Larger orders are delivered by arrangement, and collection from Folkestone is always open.
Where a job starts with a broken original (which in Elham it nearly always does) post it or bring it in. We measure with callipers, model it, print a test, check the fit and only then run the finished part. That cycle is why period-fittings work usually takes the full three to five working days rather than an overnight.
For a letting operator with several properties on the same pattern of window, quote them all at once. The modelling is done once and the parts come off one plate.
Matching old work without pretending
A printed part will never be cast brass and we do not tell people otherwise. What it can be is exactly the right shape, quickly, at a price that makes repairing the window worth doing at all. Where the fitting is visible we print in a filled or matte filament that sands and primes cleanly, so it can be painted or waxed to blend.
Where the fitting is outdoors (shutter pins, gate hardware, anything on the frontage) it goes in ASA. Indoors, PLA holds finer detail and costs less. PETG is the compromise for a part that lives inside but takes real load.
Whether any of it is acceptable on a listed building is a decision for you and the conservation officer, and it depends almost entirely on whether the part is visible. We will tell you when we think the answer is no.
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 Elham job needs, tell us where the part lives and what it has to survive.
Service area
Elham to the workshop, and back
Elham is 9 miles from the machines by road, north-north-west, up the Elham Valley. 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.
- Hawkinge, CT18, 3.5 miles by road from the workshop, north of Folkestone.
- Lyminge, CT18, 7 miles by road from the workshop, north-west of Folkestone.
- Elham, CT4, 9 miles by road from the workshop, north-north-west of Folkestone.
- Sellindge, TN25, 9 miles by road from the workshop, west-north-west of Folkestone.
- Canterbury, CT1/CT2, 17 miles by road from the workshop, north-north-west of Folkestone.
Questions from Elham
Three things businesses here ask first
That is between you and the conservation officer, and it turns almost entirely on whether the part is visible.
For hidden or reversible fittings it is rarely an issue. For visible ironmongery on a principal elevation it usually is, and we will say so rather than take the money.
Often, if the surviving half is symmetrical or there is a matching example elsewhere in the building.
Send photographs of both and we will tell you plainly what can be reconstructed and what we would be inventing.
Post it, or drop it in when you are next in Folkestone.
Photographs with a steel rule in frame are enough for a first opinion and a rough price, but the finished part is always better when we have measured the original ourselves.
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 Elham
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 Elham
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.