Design Tips

Get quick advice on creating plastic and metal parts for 3D printing, CNC machining, and injection moulding processes. Designing with manufacturability in mind can accelerate production time and reduce production costs.

Popular Topics

Cost Reduction
Making small design changes can often save you time and money.
View Tips
Defects
Design defects happen sometimes. It’s important to know in advance how to avoid the most difficult ones.
View Tips
Basic Design
Sometimes you need quick confirmation about elements of your designs and the best advice is to go back to basics.
View Tips
Complex Design
Get past the basics and delve into the deeper questions of how to model parts with complicated geometries and features.
View Tips
Plastic
We stock more than 130 plastics across our moulding, machining, and 3D printing services. Each has its own benefits and quirks. These design tips will get you ahead of any issues.
View Tips
Metal
From dangerously sharp edges to corrosion, there’s a lot to think about when designing metal parts. Learn how to avoid the big problems with these design tips.
View Tips

Featured Design Tips

Plastic part

Solving Wall Thickness Issues in Moulded Parts

Address design change requests related to slot widths and wall thicknesses for molded parts
Read Design Tip
Brass part

Finding the Right Corrosion-resistant Metals

Parts turning to piles of rust? These materials can help you avoid the scourge of corrosion.
Read Design Tip
A quality technician examines a plastic part

Plastics that Meet Medical Needs

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to plastics for medical parts. At the top of the list is safety, parts going inside the body and longevity. So, which is the best to choose for your application?
Read Design Tip
Glass Transition Temperature of Polymers

Glass Transition Temperature of Polymers

There’s an important but often overlooked material consideration when designing parts for plastic injection moulding. It’s called Tg, short for glass transition temperature or Tg.
Read Design Tip
UV Resistant Plastics

UV Resistant Plastics

This design tip evaluates UV-resistant plastic options available for injection moulding, 3D printing, and CNC machining.
Read Design Tip
plastic comparison chart

Selecting a Material for Stereolithography (SLA) 3D Printing

Compare materials for stereolithography with one another and with injection-moulded plastics.
Read Design Tip

 Insight Videos

Insight

Our Insight Video Series covers a range of design tip topics in video format. Each video giving you a deeper Insight into how to design better parts.

Covering specific topics such as; supply chain, threading for milled and turned parts and tips for multipart assemblies.

Insight

Design Essentials

We've compiled our most essential manufacturing tips into three downloadable design guides on 3D printing, machining, and moulding. Each looks at improving manufacturability, reducing production costs through design, material selection, and more.