You found a website. Fair question: who actually gets your money, and what happens if the part turns up wrong? Here's the whole thing, including the jobs we turn down.
I'm Zack. I run Print Gecko out of Forest Lake with four Bambu Lab printers. It's me who reads your email, me who draws the part, and me who puts the calipers on it before it goes in the satchel. There's no queue, no offshore team and no account manager — when you ring, I answer.
I started this because the same problem kept turning up in workshops around Wacol and Darra: a machine sitting idle over a twelve-dollar plastic part that stopped being made in 2009. Nobody wants to tool up for one of those. A printer doesn't care that it's one.
[[PHOTO]] — replace this box with a real photo of yourself in front of the four machines. Not a stock image. A phone photo of the actual bench does more for trust than anything written on this page.
In order, every time. You are never out of pocket for something you haven't approved.
A file, a link, or a photo of the broken thing. Costs nothing, commits you to nothing.
Same business day. Not a range, not an estimate that grows. If the job turns out bigger than I quoted, I stop and re-quote. I never invoice above an approved price.
No pressure and no follow-up sequence. The quote sits there for 14 days.
You see the actual measured number before you've handed over a cent.
Bank transfer or card. Trade accounts go net-14 on a purchase order once we've done two jobs. Consumers pay when the part exists and you've seen it.
Seven days. If it's faulty, isn't to the approved dimensions, or doesn't match the quote — you pick which. Nothing here limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.
You can drive to Forest Lake and collect it in person, cash in hand, having never sent a stranger money over the internet. Plenty of customers do exactly that. The address is below and the kettle works.
Roughly one enquiry in five gets turned down. A shop that says yes to everything is a shop that hasn't told you something yet.
Load-bearing, structural, medical, pressure-retaining, firearm, aerospace, or a substitute for a certified component. If it hurts someone when it lets go, it gets cut from metal by somebody else.
An offshore service beats me on price and I'll say so rather than waste your morning. I'm worth it for the one-off, the small batch, and the thing due Thursday.
Patented, trademarked or branded parts without evidence you've the right to have them made. Most free models online also carry non-commercial licences — I check, and I tell you when there's a problem.
PLA softens at 55 °C and a ute cabin in February hits 80. If your part lives in heat or sun, I'll quote PETG or ASA and the 30% that goes with it, even when the cheaper quote would have won.
You don't pay until the part exists and you've seen a photo of it measured. If you'd rather not send money to a website, drive to Forest Lake and collect it in person — that option is always open and it costs you nothing extra.
Depends entirely where it lives. Brackets, guards, jigs, spacers, housings, clips, ducting — yes, in the right plastic. Anything load-bearing, hot, or dangerous when it fails — no, and I'll say so. Show me the part and what it does and you'll get a straight answer, including when the answer costs me the job.
FDM printing holds about ±0.3 mm on a typical part. Tell me which dimensions are critical and I design the clearance in and verify them with calipers before it ships — you get that photo. If it's still out of spec, it's remade or refunded within seven days, your choice.
That's the most common way jobs arrive. Photograph it with a tape measure beside it, tell me the dimensions that have to be right, and tell me what it bolts to. Drawing is $89 for the first hour and comes straight off the print price. Or post me the broken one and I'll measure it here.
Three business days from approval, not from enquiry. Same or next day is +50% and depends on a machine being free. If I can't hit your date I say so when I quote, rather than after you've paid.
Because there's no showroom, no sales team and no minimum order of fifty — and because the filament goes through a dryer before it goes through a nozzle, every dimension gets checked, and the material is chosen for where the part lives. Brisbane humidity sits well above what filament wants; wet PETG prints weak and stringy. That's the cheapest quality difference in this trade and it's the one most people skip.
If it's a current, purchasable part, buy the real one — it'll be cheaper and it'll be right. Where printing genuinely wins is the part that's obsolete, back-ordered for six weeks, or was never sold separately in the first place.
No. Four machines is a workshop, not a factory. Past about fifty identical parts you want an offshore service or injection moulding, and I'll point you at one.
Send the photo anyway. A quote costs you nothing, commits you to nothing, and you'll get a straight answer about whether printing is even the right way to make your part — which is sometimes no.