About
PixelCrafted Prints is run by Louis Wharmby, from Folkestone
A small 3D printing workshop that works with businesses across Kent. You deal directly with the person who prints your part, which is the whole point rather than a detail.
- Based in
- Folkestone, Kent
- Build envelope
- 256 × 256 × 256 mm
- Materials
- 9 stocked
The short version
One person, a workshop, and no layer between you and the machine
Most printing bureaux put an account manager between the customer and the workshop. A design question goes in at nine, reaches someone who can answer it that afternoon, and comes back the following day. Multiply that by the four or five questions a real job generates and a week disappears before anything is printed.
Here, the person who answers the phone is the person who will open your file, decide which way up it prints and pull it off the plate. A question about wall thickness gets an answer in minutes, not because anyone is working harder but because there is nobody in the middle.
That is worth the most on the jobs where the answer changes what you do next: whether a fit will hold, whether a part should be split, whether the batch you are about to order should really be a moulding. Those conversations are the value, and they only happen when you are talking to whoever does the work.
The trade is honesty about scale. This is a workshop, not a factory. Some jobs are too large for it, and this page is a better place to say so than an invoice is.
What Louis takes on
- Rapid prototyping : iterate in days
- Small-batch production : 10 to 200 units
- Jigs, fixtures & tooling : shop-floor tooling
- One-off & replacement parts : discontinued components
- 3D design & CAD : £42 per hour
What he turns down
- Runs above about 500 identical units, where injection moulding is genuinely cheaper and better
- Work needing tighter than ±0.3 mm across several features, which belongs on a CNC machine
- Food-contact, medical, certified and safety-critical parts, and anything used as a lifting point
- Weapons, lock-defeating devices and anything infringing a live design right
Capacity
The workshop grows with the work, not ahead of it
Machines are bought when demand justifies them rather than to look impressive on a website. That keeps prices honest, and it means the answer to a busy week is a real date rather than a longer queue.
Every machine reference on this site is generated from the workshop’s actual equipment list rather than typed into the copy, so when a printer is added the build volume, the lead times and the capability pages all move with it on the same day. That sounds like a technical detail; it is really a commitment not to describe capacity we do not have.
If your work would need more machine hours than currently exist, that is a conversation worth having rather than a reason not to enquire. Repeat batch work is exactly what justifies buying the next printer, and a customer with a predictable monthly volume is worth more to a workshop this size than a large one-off.
Working together
How a first job usually goes
Almost every relationship starts with one small part. A bracket that has broken, a prototype somebody needs by Thursday, a jig the shop floor has been asking for. That job is worth very little on its own, and it is the one that matters most, because it is where you find out whether the answers you get are honest.
So the first job gets a straight assessment rather than a sales pitch. If the part should be machined, you will be told. If the quantity you have in mind should really be moulded, you will be told that too, along with a rough idea of what tooling costs, so you can make the decision properly.
What tends to follow is the repeat work: the same clip every quarter, the second and third fixture, the batch that goes out with a product. That work is the backbone of the business, and it only exists because the first small job was handled as carefully as a large one.
What you can expect
- A reply within one working day, from the person who would do the work
- A real completion date rather than an encouraging one, before you commit
- Anything we spot in your file: thin walls, awkward overhangs, holes drawn nominal: raised before you pay, not after
- Print settings recorded, so the reorder matches rather than resembles
- A straight answer when printing is the wrong process for the part
Where
Folkestone, Kent, working across the county
The workshop is in Folkestone. There is no trade counter and no public address. It is a service-area business, and collection is by arrangement rather than by dropping in.
Most customers are within an hour: light industry and engineering around the Channel Tunnel terminal, the marine trade at Folkestone and Dover harbours, product designers along the coast, and retail and hospitality businesses in the town. Being close enough to hand a part over and talk about it is worth more than most people expect.
Everywhere else in the UK is served by tracked courier, and a good proportion of the batch work is. If you are further afield and the job is straightforward, distance changes nothing except the postage line on the invoice.
Getting hold of us
- Phone
- 07424 344734
- Hours
- Monday to Friday, 09:00–17:30Saturday, 10:00–14:00Sunday, closed
- Invoicing
- Invoiced on completion, 14 days for account customers
Next step
Ask a question before you commit to anything
Technical questions are welcome whether or not there is an order behind them. If it turns out printing is the wrong process for your part, you will be told that rather than sold something.
Instant estimate. We confirm the price once we've sliced your file.