People often ask what happens between "I uploaded my STL" and "a box arrived at the door." The short answer: a lot more than pressing print. Here's the long answer.
1. File review
Every file gets a human eye before it touches a machine. We check wall thickness, overhangs, trapped volumes, tolerance-critical features, and whether the orientation the customer assumed is actually the best one for strength, surface finish or cost.
The recurring finds are always the same handful: walls under 1 mm that will arrive fragile, sharp internal corners where a clip will eventually crack, holes drawn at nominal size that will print undersize, and parts oriented so the load runs across the layers instead of along them. Each is a two-minute fix in CAD and an expensive surprise if it ships.
If something looks off, we flag it before we quote — not after.
2. Process and material selection
FDM is fast and cheap. SLA gives smooth surfaces and fine detail. SLS handles functional nylon parts with no support structures. CNC takes over when the part needs to be metal or production-grade plastic.
We pick the process that fits the part, not the one that fits our schedule. The reasoning behind that choice is written up in full in FDM vs SLA vs SLS, and the material side in 3D printing materials 101.
If there's no file at all — just a broken original — this step starts earlier, with 3D scanning and a CAD rebuild.
3. Printing
Every print starts with a clean build plate, calibrated bed levelling and a slicer profile tuned for the specific material. Long prints get checked on a schedule. Critical prints get watched.
Machine time is the least interesting part of the job and the easiest to get wrong: a drifting bed or a tired nozzle costs accuracy quietly, and you only find out at the measuring stage.
4. Post-processing
Support removal, sanding, priming, painting, vapour smoothing, threaded inserts, bead blasting, dyeing — whichever combination the part needs to look and function the way the customer expects.
This is where more hours go than most people expect. A resin part needs washing, curing and support clean-up before it's a part at all. An SLS part needs depowdering and blasting. A visible FDM part needs filling and paint if it's going to pass as trim. When a quote looks high for a small object, finishing is usually the reason.
5. QA and packing
We measure critical dimensions against the original drawing — which is why we ask which dimensions are critical. We photograph the finished part. We pack it like it matters, because to the customer it does.
For production batches, measurements are recorded per unit rather than sampled, and the numbers go out with the shipment. More on what's realistic to hold in 3D printing tolerances.
That's the cycle
Upload, review, make, finish, ship. Usually in days, not weeks.
Ready to start? Send us a file or a photo. For repeat batches and production runs, our enterprise service covers the ongoing side.
The BMW Z3 centre console trim shown with this article went through exactly this pipeline — file review, process choice, print, finish — the way most orders do.
SHIPS 3–5 DAYS
