Jigs & Fixtures.

A fixture is designed against something that already exists — a workpiece, a bench, a machine, a pair of hands. So we work from the thing it has to serve, not from a description of it: send the STEP file of the workpiece, or the part itself. If no model exists, we can scan it in-house.

Locating features, hardware pockets and the revision letter go into the body of the fixture, so the version on the bench is never in question.

A fixture is not a product. It never leaves your building, no customer ever sees it, and its only job is to make the part that does ship come out right. Its budget should be measured in what it saves.

Machining buys precision that a holding or locating fixture usually does not need, and charges for programming, workholding and stock again every time the design moves. Printing charges for a print. Quantity one is a normal order — exactly the volume printing is best at. And geometry that would add machining time — a pocket matching the part, an undercut, a cable channel, a nest that only fits one way round — adds nothing to a print. A fixture is also drawn so there is little to do to it once it comes off the plate: clearances that do not need reaming, the faces that matter oriented to print clean, and no supports where the jig touches the work.

Most of what we run makes a working fixture, so the question is only what the jig has to survive. PLA and PLA Pro for benchtop jigs and locating aids. PETG where it needs some give and a bit more heat than PLA allows. PET-CF where stiffness and dimensional hold matter. ESD-safe PETG where the fixture touches electronics.