Jigs and fixtures are the unsung heroes of any workshop, holding parts in place, guiding tools and making assembly repeatable from one unit to the next. Traditionally they are machined from metal or plastic, which is both slow and costly, especially for complex shapes that need pockets, curves and locating features cut from solid stock.
MJF offers a faster, cheaper way to make genuinely tough custom tooling, and we produce production aids for manufacturers every week through our MJF & SLS printing service. Once a shop floor sees how quickly a custom fixture can appear, and how well it holds up to daily use, printed tooling tends to become a regular part of how they work.
Faster and cheaper than machining
A custom fixture machined from a solid block can take days to produce and cost a fair amount, especially once complex shapes, setups and tool changes are involved. The very same fixture printed in MJF can be ready quickly and at a fraction of the cost, with curves, channels and pockets that would be awkward and slow to machine built straight into the design from the start.
Because there is no tooling to make and no lengthy setup time, even a single one off fixture is economical to produce. That means you can justify making a purpose built aid for a job that would never have warranted machining one, and you can iterate the design cheaply when the first version shows room to improve.
Tough enough for the job
PA12 nylon is genuinely hard wearing and resists the oils, greases and solvents that are common in any working environment, so a printed fixture will not soften or swell on the bench. Fixtures see plenty of handling and the occasional knock, and MJF parts shrug that treatment off far better than the brittle plastics people sometimes expect from printing.
Where extra stiffness is needed for heavier duty work or larger fixtures, a glass-filled nylon version adds rigidity without giving up much toughness. That gives you a tooling material that can be tuned to the demands of the specific task, from a soft holder for delicate parts to a rigid gauge that must hold its shape.
What MJF tooling does well
Printed jigs and fixtures suit a very wide range of shop floor tasks, from simple alignment aids to precise inspection gauges. The freedom to build exactly what the job needs, with no minimum order and no tooling, is what makes them so useful day to day.
- Assembly jigs that hold parts in precise alignment.
- Drill guides and locating fixtures for accuracy.
- Soft jaws and protective holders for delicate parts.
- Inspection gauges and go or no go checks.
Designing tooling that earns its keep
A good fixture is designed around the part it serves and the hands that will use it. Adding clear locating features, chamfers that guide a part into place and finger clearance for loading and unloading turns a fixture from merely workable into something that genuinely speeds the job and reduces mistakes on the line.
Where a fixture wears at a particular contact point, that area can be thickened or fitted with a replaceable insert so the whole tool does not need reprinting. Marking part numbers and orientation directly into the print keeps a growing set of fixtures organised, which matters once a shop has dozens of them in use. A small chamfer on every leading edge also stops parts snagging as they are loaded and unloaded, which keeps a busy production line moving smoothly through the day.
Make your shop more efficient
If a manual step in your process is slow, fiddly or inconsistent, a custom fixture very often fixes it for good and pays for itself quickly. Send us a sketch or a model through a quote, or contact us to talk the task through, and we will design tooling that suits the way you actually work.