No tooling, ever
An injection mould is thousands of dollars and weeks of lead time before the first part exists. A printer has none: part one costs what part one hundred costs.
Materials guide
Every plastic behaves differently.
Pick the right one.
The same model printed in PLA and in TPU is two different objects — one you can stand on, one you can fold in half. Here is what separates the seven materials we print, and what each is genuinely for.
Why print it
Printing does not beat machining or moulding at everything. It wins decisively at a few things, and those few cover most of what a workshop actually needs.
Drawing today, part tomorrow
Most parts come off the plate the same day they are quoted. Nothing is ordered, nothing is set up, and nothing waits behind another job.
Shapes a cutter cannot reach
Internal channels, lattices, undercuts, a hinge printed already assembled. If a tool cannot get to it, that is a limit of cutting, not of building up.
Being wrong is cheap
Change three millimetres in the model and print it again. Three revisions in a week costs less than one mistake caught after the mould was cut.
One is a real quantity
A discontinued spare, a jig for one machine, a bracket that fits only your shelf. No minimum order, because there is no setup to amortise.
Made here
No import, no customs, no six-week container. The file goes up, the part comes out, and you can hold it this week.
How a printed part is made
Fused deposition: a strand of plastic is melted and laid down in lines, one thin layer at a time, until the lines add up to a solid object.
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1 The model
A closed 3D shape, exported as an STL from any CAD tool — Fusion, SolidWorks, Blender, Tinkercad.
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2 The slice
The shape is cut into layers and each layer into a path: walls first, then the infill lattice inside, and supports under anything that overhangs.
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3 The print
The nozzle traces every path at around 200–300 °C onto a heated plate. Each layer welds to the one under it while it is still hot.
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4 The finish
Supports come off, the seam is cleaned up, and the part can be sanded, drilled, tapped, glued or painted like any other plastic.
The seven materials
Four properties separate them in practice: how much load they take, how far they bend, how hot they can get, and how much trouble they are to print. Everything else is detail.
- Strength
- How much load it carries before it gives.
- Flexibility
- How far it bends and still comes back.
- Heat resistance
- How warm it can get and keep its shape.
- Outdoors / UV
- How it holds up to sunlight and weather.
- Easy to print
- How forgiving it is on the machine.
PLA
The easy one
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Heat resistance
- Easy to print
Reach for it when the part has to look right — prototypes, display models, indoor jigs, anything with fine detail.
Live with it goes soft in a closed car, and it chips rather than bends when something hits it.
PETG
The all-rounder
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Heat resistance
- Easy to print
Reach for it when the part has a job to do — functional brackets, water-facing parts, anything that must not shatter.
Live with it strings a little, so expect a minute of clean-up, and it scratches more easily than PLA.
ABS
The workshop plastic
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Heat resistance
- Easy to print
Reach for it when the part gets worked on afterwards — enclosures and brackets you will drill, tap, glue or smooth with acetone.
Live with it curls off an open plate, so it wants an enclosure, and it wants the room ventilated.
ASA
ABS that survives a summer
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Heat resistance
- Easy to print
Reach for it when the part lives outside — mounts, housings, signage, anything facing the sun for years.
Live with the same enclosure and the same ventilation as ABS, and it costs a little more.
PC
The strong one
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Heat resistance
- Easy to print
Reach for it when the part takes real load or real heat — structural brackets, tooling, anything sitting next to a motor.
Live with a very hot nozzle, a sealed enclosure, and a spool that must be dried before it is opened up.
TPU 95A
Rubber you can print
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Heat resistance
- Easy to print
Reach for it when the part has to give — gaskets, feet, grips, wheels, cases and protective covers.
Live with it prints slowly and needs a direct-drive printer; a long soft strand does not push well down a tube.
TPU 85A
Softer still
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Heat resistance
- Easy to print
Reach for it when you want something closer to a rubber band than a shoe sole — soft seals, squeezable grips, damping mounts.
Live with it is the hardest filament in this list to run: slow, fussy, and only for simple geometry.
Still unsure? Send us the model and tell us what the part does — choosing the material is part of the quote, not something we leave to you.
Upload a modelSide by side
The same numbers as the cards above, in one table — for when the question is "which of these", not "what is this".
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
| Material | Strength | Flexibility | Heat resistance | Outdoors / UV | Easy to print | Nozzle | Bed | Enclosure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLA | 190–220° | 50–60° | Not needed | |||||
| PETG | 230–250° | 70–85° | Not needed | |||||
| ABS | 230–260° | 90–110° | Required | |||||
| ASA | 240–265° | 90–110° | Required | |||||
| PC | 260–310° | 100–120° | Required | |||||
| TPU 95A | 220–240° | 40–60° | Not needed | |||||
| TPU 85A | 210–230° | 30–50° | Not needed |
And then there is colour
Colour is pigment mixed into the same plastic, so it changes almost nothing about how a part behaves. Almost.
- Black
- White
- Grey
- Silver
- Red
- Orange
- Yellow
- Green
- Blue
- Purple
- Transparent
- Wood
Dark colours hide layer lines. Black is the kindest finish a printed part gets for free.
Transparent shows every line instead, which is either the point or a problem.
Glitter, glow and carbon-filled grades are abrasive — they wear a brass nozzle out in a few spools.
Which colours are in stock is shown for real when you configure a print — this is the range they come from.
If you only read one thing
Find the sentence that sounds like your part.
- It just has to look right.
- PLA
- It has to survive being used.
- PETG
- It lives outside, in the sun.
- ASA
- It has to bend and spring back.
- TPU 95A
- It gets hot, or it carries a load.
- PC
- I will drill and glue it afterwards.
- ABS
Buy the filament, print it yourself
Have a printer already? The spools we run are the spools we sell — same materials, same colours, off the shelf.
Filament is not listed in the store yet — message us and we will tell you what is on the shelf.
Chat with us on WhatsAppOr let us print it
Upload an STL and you get the real price, the real weight and the real print time before you commit to anything — sliced with the same settings the machine will run.
Get a price for your model