Shop-floor tooling
3D printed jigs, fixtures and production tooling
Drill guides, assembly fixtures, alignment jigs, gauges and mounts, made to the dimensions of your bench rather than to a catalogue's.
- Turnaround
- 3–5 working days from an agreed drawing or model
- Price
- From £30
- Files
- Yours, and confidential
What this is
Jigs, fixtures & tooling: what you are actually buying
A fixture that saves thirty seconds on an operation repeated four hundred times a week pays for itself in a fortnight. The reason most workshops do not have one is that having it machined is slow and expensive relative to the saving. Printing it is neither.
Send a sketch with dimensions, a photograph next to a rule, the part the jig has to locate, or a CAD file: any of those is enough to start. If there is no model at all, our design service builds one and you own it afterwards.
Material choice matters more here than anywhere else. PLA-CF and PETG-CF stay rigid under clamp pressure and resist creep. PETG takes a knock without cracking. ASA holds up outdoors and in a van. TPU makes a soft-jaw insert that grips a finished surface without marking it. We will recommend rather than default.
Tooling gets used, dropped and lost. Because the file stays on record, a replacement is a reprint at the same price rather than a new project, and version two, with the change your operator asked for, is a day's work.
What we will not supply: anything safety-critical, load-bearing above a person, or used as a lifting point. Printed parts are not certified and we will not pretend otherwise.
Who it is for
Production and maintenance managers, workshop leads and assembly teams who need tooling that fits their process exactly.
What you get
- Built to your measured dimensions, not to a catalogue size
- Carbon-filled filaments where stiffness under clamp load matters
- Soft TPU jaws and pads where a finished surface must not be marked
- File held on record, so a replacement is a reprint at the same price
- Not for safety-critical, certified or lifting applications: stated up front
What we need from you
- The component the fixture has to locate, or accurate measurements of it
- What the operation is, and how many times a day it happens
- Any clamp load, drill size or tool the jig has to accommodate
- Whether it lives on a bench, in a van or outdoors
How it runs
The process for this specific service
In order, with what each stage actually decides. Lead time runs from the point the design is agreed, not from the point the enquiry lands.
Measure the thing it has to fit
Day 0A jig is defined by the part it locates and the bench it sits on, not by a catalogue size. Send a CAD file, a dimensioned sketch, photographs next to a steel rule, or post us the component the fixture has to hold. Any of those is enough to start.
Design around the operation
Design work if neededThe useful question is not what shape the jig is, but which of the operator's hands is free and how the part is loaded and released. Locating features, clearance for fingers, a hard stop that makes the wrong orientation impossible: these are what separate a fixture that gets used from one that ends up in a drawer.
Material chosen for the load
Matters most hereCarbon-filled grades stay rigid under clamp pressure and resist creep. PETG takes a knock without cracking. ASA survives a van and a yard. TPU makes a soft jaw that grips a finished surface without marking it. This is the service where the material choice does the most work.
Printed, checked against the real part
3–5 working daysWherever we have the component the jig locates, the fit is checked physically rather than on screen. Where we do not, we print the first one and you check it before we make any more.
Version two is a day's work
After first useTooling gets used, dropped and improved. Because the file stays on record, a replacement is a reprint at the same price rather than a new project, and the change your operator asked for after a week on the line is usually a day of design and a print.
Example jobs
Work of this kind we have taken on
- Drill guide for a repeated four-hole pattern on a sheet-metal panel
- Assembly fixture holding three components square while adhesive cured
- Go/no-go gauge for an inspection station, printed in PLA-CF
- Bracket set for a machine guard, replacing parts no longer supplied
- Soft TPU jaw covers for a vice handling anodised parts
Materials
What we would normally print this in
PLA-CF
£30.00/kgThe default for indoor fixtures: the stiffest thing we print, and a flat face stays flat under clamp load.
PETG-CF
£32.00/kgTooling that gets dropped, knocked or used outside: stiffness plus impact resistance.
PETG HF
£16.00/kgGeneral shop-floor guides and mounts where toughness matters more than rigidity.
TPU 95A
£25.00/kgSoft jaws, pads and inserts that must grip an anodised or polished surface without marking it.
Not sure which applies to your part? Compare all nine materials or describe where the part will live and what it has to survive.
3–5 working days from an agreed drawing or model
Express brings it down to 2–3 working days, for 35% more.
From £30
minimum order: most single jigs land between £30 and £90
£30 minimum, no VAT
Invoiced on completion, 14-day terms for account customers.
Questions
Jigs, fixtures & tooling: what buyers ask
For locating, guiding, aligning and holding: routinely, yes, and carbon-filled grades hold their geometry under clamp pressure better than most people expect. Printed fixtures are in daily use on production lines because they are cheap enough to make exactly right rather than approximately right.
For load-bearing, lifting or anything safety-critical, no. Nothing we print carries a material certificate, a batch trace or a load rating. If the fixture supports a load above a person or forms part of a guard that has to be certified, it needs to be metal.
Yes, and that is the usual starting point. Post us the component, or send clear photographs alongside a steel rule with the critical dimensions marked. We measure with digital callipers and model from that.
Design time is charged separately at an hourly rate with the hours estimated before work starts, and you own the resulting model. A single-feature drill guide is typically an hour or two; a multi-part assembly fixture is longer.
Most single jigs land between £30 and £90 in materials and machine time, with design on top if there is no model. The £30 order minimum covers small guides and gauges.
The comparison worth making is not against another supplier but against the operation. A fixture that saves thirty seconds on a task repeated four hundred times a week pays for itself in a fortnight, which is why the sensible answer is usually to make it properly rather than to make do.
If we made it, yes. The file is on record and a replacement is a reprint at the same price, usually within the standard lead time. There is no repeat setup charge.
If someone else made it, send us the original and we will measure and remodel it. That becomes a design job first and a printing job second, and you own the model afterwards either way.
The rest of what we do
Other services
The four other things we do, and where each one is the better answer.
- 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 - 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 - 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 - £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 per hour
Next step
Send the file and get a price in a minute
Drop in an STL or 3MF and the estimate is worked out in your browser, from your geometry, at your quantity. Nothing is uploaded unless you choose to send it with an order.
Instant estimate. We confirm the price once we've sliced your file.