Notes from the print bed.
Fitment guides, material breakdowns and reverse-engineering write-ups for discontinued and hard-to-find car parts.
What happens to the plastic: waste, recycling and reclaimed filament
3D printing has a waste problem, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. Here's what we do with failed prints, supports and offcuts — and where reclaimed filament fits.
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Volvo Gemini wheel caps and the small wheel parts we print
The Gemini centre cap is the detail that finishes a classic Volvo's wheels — and it's exactly the kind of discontinued part...
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Before you order: the questions we get asked most
Lead times, pricing, files, minimum orders and the dreaded 'is this thing going to break?' — the answers we give most often,...
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Installing 3D-printed car parts: clips, fit and the mistakes to avoid
A part that fits perfectly on the bench can still fight you in the car. Here's what we've learned about clips, clearances...
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Case study: a small-batch consumer product, from render to retail
A brand came to us with a finished render and a retail launch date, and no injection-mould budget. Here's how a 400-unit...
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OEM vs 3D-printed replacement parts: what you gain and what you give up
An OEM part is injection-moulded, tested to a specification and guaranteed to fit. A printed replacement isn't any of those things. So...
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Heat, sun and the inside of a car: ASA, ABS and PETG compared
A car interior hits 70°C in summer and exterior trim sits in UV all year. Here's how ASA, ABS and PETG behave...
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Designing a part for 3D printing: what to send us
The difference between a file that prints first time and one that costs three revisions is usually decided before we open the...
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Sanding, priming and painting 3D-printed parts: a finishing guide
FDM parts come off the printer with layer lines. Here's how we go from a raw print to a part that looks...
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B2B prototyping: from sketch to functional part in days
For marine, healthcare and consumer goods clients, the value of printing a prototype isn't the print — it's finding out what's wrong...
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From CAD file to finished part: our quality control checklist
Every part gets checked against the same list before it ships, whether it's a €24 ashtray insert or a forty-piece B2B production...
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Why we print most exterior car parts in PETG
PETG isn't the flashiest filament, but it's what we reach for on most exterior trim. Here's the actual reasoning, and where we...
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VW Polo diffuser lip: fitment, install and finish guide
A three-piece bolt-on diffuser lip for the Polo GTI and R-Look — how it fits, how it installs, and how to finish...
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Small-batch production: when 3D printing beats a mould
Injection moulding wins at volume. Below a certain quantity, tooling cost flips the equation — here's roughly where that line sits, and...
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How much does a custom 3D-printed car part cost?
Material, process, size and quantity — the four things that actually move the price of a custom or reproduced part, with real...
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Reverse engineering a part with no CAD file, no drawing, no vendor
For B2B clients the starting point is usually a failed part and a dead supplier, not a spec sheet. How we rebuild...
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From broken part to CAD file: how we 3D scan for reprints
Most parts we reproduce start as a worn or broken sample, not a drawing. Here's what happens between the part landing on...
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Hella-style headlight covers: fitment, materials and finish
Round Hella-style covers for Golf MK3 and BMW E30 quad-light setups — how they fit, what we print them in, and how...
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Volvo 240, 740 and 940 interior trim we print most
Wheel caps, dashboard cup holders, ashtray inserts — the small interior parts on brick-era Volvos that Volvo itself stopped stocking years ago.
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BMW E30 restoration parts: what we print and why
Kidney grilles gone soft, air intakes cracked at the tabs, quad-light covers yellowed past saving. The E30 trim parts BMW stopped making...
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3D printing tolerances: what to expect on automotive parts
Plus or minus what? A straight answer on FDM, SLA and SLS accuracy — what drives the variation, how to design around...
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SLS nylon vs injection molding: when printing beats tooling
Injection molding still wins at 10,000+ units. Under that — especially for automotive and marine short runs — 3D-printed nylon quietly takes...
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The 10 discontinued car parts we print most often
Trim clips, emblems, vent surrounds, knobs — the small plastic parts the factory stopped making. Here's what we recreate most, what each...
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3D printing materials 101: what to print in, and why
PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA, nylon, polycarbonate, resin, TPU — a plain-English guide to the materials we print with every day, and the...
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Case study: custom marine parts for a working fleet
How we replaced out-of-production boat hardware with 3D-printed parts that have outlasted the originals — three weeks from first call to a...
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FDM vs SLA vs SLS: choosing the right 3D printing process
Three letters, three very different parts. A practical guide to picking the process that actually fits your project — with the trade-offs,...
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Inside the workshop: how a custom part gets made at O43D
What happens between 'I uploaded my STL' and 'a box arrived at the door' — file review, process choice, printing, finishing and...
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Our mission: manufacturing without the gatekeepers
Why we started O43D — and why we think 3D printing is the shortest path from an idea to a part in...
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Restoring a Golf MK2: custom 3D-printed interior trim
A customer brought us a 1990 GTI with cracked vent surrounds, missing clips and a trunk handle held together with tape. Fourteen...
Can't find the part in the article?
Send us a photo or an OEM number. If it exists, we can model it and print it — made to order, custom fit, shipped from Slovenia.
