About Partsmith

What Partsmith is

Partsmith makes parts that do not exist yet. That covers replacements for things that broke and are no longer sold, custom parts modelled from a drawing or a sketch, jigs and fixtures for a specific job on a specific machine, gripper jaws and end-of-arm tooling for collaborative robots, and prototypes for products still being developed.

The site is deliberately written for businesses and workshops. That is not a policy about who is allowed to get in touch — the work on this site includes a university project and people developing something at home. It is about being clear where the value is. This is a workshop where a part is measured, modelled, prototyped and checked before it is finished, and that is worth paying for when a part has to function. If what you need is the cheapest possible print of a file you already have, there are cheaper places, and they will serve you better than we will.

Experience

Partsmith is built on over six years' experience in 3D modelling and printing, and more than a thousand prints. That experience is the reason the work is described the way it is on this site: the failure modes here are ones that have actually been seen, and the limits stated are ones that have actually been hit.

The trading name and this site are new. The experience behind them is not, and the two are kept distinct on purpose — there is no claim here about how long a business has existed, only about how long the work has been done.

How work arrives

There is no wrong way to send a job in, and no file is required to start.

• A ready file. An STL or a solid model that just needs printing. It gets checked before it goes on the machine, and you will hear about anything likely to fail.
• A drawing or a sketch. Dimensioned or not. It gets modelled, and the questions get asked before the plastic is committed.
• A broken original. The part gets measured by hand, modelled from those measurements, printed and test-fitted against whatever it has to mate with.
• Photographs and measurements. Where the part cannot be sent, clear photos from several angles plus the dimensions that control fit are usually enough.
• A description. If you can say what the thing has to do, that is a starting point. One of the jobs on this site began with nothing but a conversation.

Whichever way it arrives, the sequence is the same: measure, model, print one, fit it, adjust, then print the rest.

What gets printed, and what does not

Three materials are used here, and being specific about them matters more than offering a long list:

• PETG for most tough functional parts — brackets, housings, mounts, anything handled roughly or left outdoors.
• PLA for parts that need to hold their shape accurately and are not under sustained load, and for prototypes where crisp detail matters.
• Flexible TPU for parts that need to bend, grip, damp or seal — gaskets, soft jaws, grommets, strain reliefs.

Those three are the list, and it is a short list on purpose. High-temperature engineering filaments and fibre-filled materials are not printed here — this workshop is not set up for them, and printing them badly is worse than not printing them at all. If your part genuinely needs one of those, or needs metal, you will be told so and pointed elsewhere rather than sold a part that will not hold up.

The other standing limits are worth stating plainly. Nothing printed here should be run at sustained high temperature. Nothing here is suitable for food contact, for drinking water, or for anything structural or safety-critical. Printed parts are not watertight by default. And fine threads, close-fitting mechanical surfaces and precision bearing faces are better machined than printed. None of this is a reason not to enquire — it is a reason you will get a straight answer when you do.

Testing, and what it is worth

Parts get checked before they go out, and it is worth being precise about what that does and does not mean.

Test fitting is the routine one and the most valuable. A prototype is printed and offered up to whatever it has to mate with, and the model is corrected against the result. Almost everything that would have gone wrong gets caught here.

Simulation can be run on a part where it helps — to compare two ways of doing something, or to see whether an approach is sound before it is committed to. It is used as an indication and nothing more. A simulation will not reflect a finished printed part exactly: a printed part is layered and anisotropic, its strength depends on orientation, infill and how well the layers bonded on the day, and no analysis of a solid model captures that. It is useful for direction. It is not a substitute for testing the real part, and it will never be presented here as though it were.

Destructive testing can be arranged for smaller parts — loading and impact, at small scale. It is a controlled and genuinely useful check for the kind of use these parts see, and it will tell you something real about how a design behaves. It is not certification, it is not to a published standard, and it is not aerospace-grade validation. This is not an aerospace workshop and nothing here should be treated as though it were. Where a part matters that much, it needs a testing house and a different manufacturing process, and you should be told that rather than reassured.

What happens to your files

This is settled up front rather than left to be discovered later.

If you supply the file, it stays yours. It is used to make your parts and nothing else. It is not reused, adapted, republished or printed for anyone else.

If we model the part for you, you get the model. Where you have paid for design work, the STL is supplied with the job, and a solid model in a neutral format such as STEP can be provided on request. You are not renting your own part, and you are not tied to Partsmith to have it made again.

That is said explicitly because it often is not. It is worth asking any supplier the same question before they start work, because the default position in law is that whoever creates a design owns the copyright in it unless an agreement says otherwise — which means it is entirely possible to pay for a model and not be entitled to the file. Here, you are.

The exception is general know-how. Techniques, print settings and approaches developed doing the work are not part of any customer's file and are not handed over with it. Your design is yours; how a printer is tuned is not a design.

Where we are, and where we work

Partsmith is based in Geelong and works across Melbourne, Geelong and regional Victoria, with parts posted Australia-wide. Collection can be arranged in Geelong, and jobs are posted everywhere else. Being in Geelong rather than in the middle of Melbourne is not a disadvantage for this kind of work — almost everything is settled by email and photographs, and a part in a satchel reaches Melbourne overnight.

What it costs to start

The minimum order is $75. That figure is published for a reason: it saves the wrong enquiry the trouble of being made, and it tells the right one that this is a workshop where parts are measured, modelled and checked rather than run off as cheaply as possible.

Beyond the minimum, price depends on the work — how much modelling a job needs, how long it takes to print, which material it wants, how many you need and how soon. A photo of the part or drawing with a rough size is usually enough for a same-day quote.