About 3dp6
3dp6 is a small custom 3D printing service based near Penistone in South Yorkshire. We make functional plastic parts to order — prototypes, replacements, brackets, jigs and small batches — for customers across South & West Yorkshire and nearby and by post across the UK.
We are new, and we are not going to pretend otherwise
Most 3D printing sites open with a wall of glowing reviews, a photo of a machine room and a tally of parts shipped. We have none of that to show you yet, and inventing it would be the fastest way to lose your trust before we had earned it.
So this site is built the other way round. The prices come from a published formula and the measured geometry of real models — you can check the arithmetic on any part in the print library and read exactly how pricing works. The guides say plainly where the process is a poor fit. The service pages list what we will not take on. That is what we have instead of a page of glowing quotes, and we think it is worth more.
How it works
No account, no sales call, no obligation. It runs by upload, email and post.
Send your file or describe the part
Upload an STL, OBJ, 3MF or STEP file, or tell us what you need with photos and a few measurements.
Get a guide price
When we can read the geometry we estimate from it straight away — material, print time, supports and quantity all priced openly.
We check printability, then confirm
A person reviews orientation, wall thickness and supports, flags anything that will not print well, and confirms your final quote before any work starts.
How we work
Guide prices, not fake quotes
Every price on this site is a guide, calculated from real geometry and published pricing rules. A person reviews printability before anything is confirmed. If the guide price was wrong, we tell you before you commit — not after.
We say when printing is the wrong answer
FDM is not the right process for everything. If your part wants machining, moulding or resin — or if the thing you want is still sold as a spare — we would rather say so and lose the job than take your money for a part that will disappoint you.
No safety-critical work
We will not print structural, load-bearing, pressure-retaining or safety-critical parts, however routine the request looks. Printed plastic fails in ways moulded plastic does not, and some jobs are not worth the risk.
Your files stay private
Uploads go to private storage, are never made public, and are only used to quote and produce your job. Nothing is published or shared without you asking.
Why 3D printing
The parts worth printing are the ones you cannot buy: the discontinued clip holding a dashboard together, the bracket that is 4mm too short in every shop, the jig that would make a fiddly job repeatable, the prototype you need in your hand before committing to tooling. That is the work we are set up for — one-offs and short runs where making the part to fit beats making do.
What we are not is a factory. If you need ten thousand identical parts, a mould will beat us on every measure that matters, and we will tell you so — there is a guide explaining where that crossover sits.
Straight answers
Why are there no reviews or case studies on this site?+
Because we have not earned them yet. 3dp6 is new. We would rather show you real geometry, real prices and honest limits than invent praise or a customer list. When there is genuine work to show, and permission to show it, it will appear here.
Are the models in your library things you have printed?+
No, and we are careful about saying so. They are example designs we author and release under CC0 so you can see what the process suits and what it costs. Every one is genuinely printable and you can download the file for free — but they are examples, not a portfolio.
Do you have a workshop I can visit?+
No. There is no walk-in shopfront, which is part of why prices are what they are. Work is quoted by upload or description, and parts go out by post, with collection arranged locally where it is practical.
What can you actually make?+
Functional plastic parts by FDM: prototypes, replacement parts, brackets, mounts, jigs, fixtures, enclosures and small batches. We do not do resin, metal or 3D scanning, and we will point you elsewhere when that is what your job needs.
Who is behind it?+
3dp6 is a small operation based near Penistone in South Yorkshire, serving customers across the region and posting parts UK-wide. Email reaches a person, not a queue.
What if the part is not right?+
Tell us. We will look at what went wrong and be straight with you about whether it was our call on orientation, material or printability, or a limit of the process we should have flagged earlier. We would rather fix the advice than argue.
Send us something to price
Upload a file or describe the part. You will get a guide price, and an honest answer about whether printing is right for it.