08/04/2026
Walk through any production shop and the tools doing the most work are usually the ones nobody points at.
Jigs and fixtures. They hold the part, keep it square, and make sure number four hundred comes out looking like number one.
The usual approach is to machine them from aluminum. Nothing wrong with that, except every time the design moves you start over.
Printing them loosens that up. You can model the fixture around the exact part it has to hold, run it in tough nylon, and change it whenever the process changes. It is lighter in the hand as well, which the person using it every shift notices long before anyone else does.
Where it gets really useful is with older gear. No drawings, no files, just a worn part that still has to be held perfectly. So we scan it. Then the fixture fits the real thing, casting quirks and all.
None of this tooling ever leaves the floor. It just makes sure everything that does leave is right.
π§ Got an awkward part that never sits the same way twice?
π Bring us the problem at https://3dimensional.ca/