Replacement & Obsolete Parts
The part is discontinued. The machine does not have to be.
A five-pound plastic clip fails and a perfectly good machine becomes scrap, because the part has not been made for eleven years and the manufacturer has moved on. We remake parts like that. You do not need a file and you do not need the original drawings — a clear set of photos, the broken pieces if you still have them, and a few measurements are usually enough for us to model a replacement.
Who this is for
- Maintenance teams keeping older machinery running
- Restorers of classic vehicles, appliances and equipment
- Businesses with kit that works fine apart from one failed component
- Anyone told by a manufacturer that a part is no longer available
What we need to quote
Not all of it — whatever you have. We will ask about the rest.
- Photos of the part from several angles — including the broken faces
- Key measurements: overall size, hole spacing, thickness, any thread
- What it fits and how it is held in place
- Whether it is under load, near heat, or outdoors
Materials for this work
PLA
Display pieces, models and indoor parts where crisp detail and colour matter more than heat resistance.
PETG
The general-purpose workhorse — tougher than PLA, handles moisture and moderate heat, good for functional parts.
ASA
Outdoor and vehicle parts. UV-stable and weather-resistant, so it will not go brittle or fade in sunlight.
TPU
Flexible parts — gaskets, bumpers, grips, protective sleeves and anything that needs to bend or absorb impact.
Replacement & Obsolete Parts — questions we get asked
I do not have a 3D file. How does this work?
Most people in this position do not. We work from photographs and measurements: send clear pictures from several angles with a ruler in frame, plus the critical dimensions, and we model the part from those. If you can post us the broken original that is better still, because we can measure it directly.
Do you 3D scan the old part?
No — we do not offer 3D scanning. We model replacements from photographs and measurements instead, which works well for the mechanical and functional parts this service is mostly used for. It does mean we need dimensions from you rather than guessing them from a picture.
Will the replacement be as strong as the original?
Often stronger, sometimes different. The original was probably injection moulded in a material we cannot exactly replicate, so we pick the closest printed equivalent for the job — PETG for general toughness, ASA where sunlight and weather are involved, TPU where it needs to flex. Tell us how the original failed and we will often design out the weakness.
Can you improve the part while you are at it?
Frequently, yes. Parts that snap tend to snap in the same place, and once we are modelling it anyway, thickening a wall or adding a fillet costs nothing extra. We will suggest it if we see it.
Can you make more than one?
Yes, and it is worth considering while the design work is already paid for. If a part has failed once on a fleet of identical machines, a small batch of spares on the shelf usually costs far less than modelling it again in two years.