Latest acquisition: 3D printer

We recently acquired a 3D printer—something our engineer had been hoping for. 3D printing of clamping jigs for our recently purchased CMM and masking jigs for the finishing department saves a lot of man-hours and, consequently, costs. Instead of producing a metal jig and spending two to three days machining it in the tool shop, the 3D printer now delivers a perfect plastic jig within 24 hours that serves as a perfect counterpart to the product. With the clamping jigs, products can always be placed in the same spot on the CMM, eliminating the need to manually reposition them each time. In addition, masking jigs are used during the finishing of the products. This eliminates the need to repeatedly and precisely mask off products. For our customers, the 3D printer is an excellent tool in the development of their products. For some of them, prototypes of their products are now being produced. As a result, large investments in molds are not necessary to obtain a good example of the final product.