Stop 1 of 5 — Line start, unpigmented
Natural
#D9D6CC · UNPIG · from 0 m
rPETG · PETG · PC · PA6-CF · TPU-95
Datum Polymer · Line 1 · 1.75 mm
Wound in Yorkshire. Measured every eight millimetres.
A twin-axis laser gauges the strand five hundred times a second as it winds. The trace ships with the spool, and we keep it for six years.
0 m 1 kg PLA · 335 m of it 335 m
The run
Light runs before dark. That is arithmetic, not preference.
A colour change on an extrusion line is not a cut. The new masterbatch enters the barrel while the last one is still leaving, and for a few metres the strand is neither colour. Purging a dark pigment out costs far more material than purging a light one in, so the day is ordered pale to black. Descend, and you are watching one kilogram run through five of them.
Stop 2 of 5 — Masterbatch dosed at 2.1%
Sodium
#F0A32B · RAL 1028 · from 74 m
PLA · PLA-M · PETG · ABS · TPU-95
Stop 3 of 5 — Purged through in 6 m
Signal Red
#D8322A · RAL 3001 · from 152 m
PLA · PLA-M · PLA-S · rPETG · PETG · ABS · ASA · TPU-95
Stop 4 of 5 — Purged through in 9 m
Brunswick
#0F4D3A · RAL 6005 · from 241 m
PLA · PLA-M · PETG · ASA
Stop 5 of 5 — Last of the run. Barrel down.
Ordnance
#101214 · RAL 9005 · from 335 m
PLA · PLA-M · PLA-S · rPETG · PETG · ABS · ASA · PC · PLA-CF · PA6-CF · TPU-95
Metres wound
000 m
Purge in progress · strand is neither colour
- ±0.02
- mm · diameter held
- 0.015
- mm · maximum ovality
- 500
- gauge samples per second
- 6
- years the trace is kept
The range
Eighteen colours. Eleven materials. Not every colour in every material.
Pigment does not behave the same way in every polymer, and some combinations we will not sell. Pewter and Copperworks are silk PLA and nothing else. Natural exists only where the polymer is worth seeing through. Pick one and the wound face changes with it.
The broad-arrow black on surplus kit
Batch 24-A-0912 · PLA · Sodium · wound 11 August
The measurement, not the claim.
Everyone in this trade publishes a tolerance. A tolerance is a promise about a spool you have not been sent. This is the actual diameter of the actual kilogram, from the first metre to the last, as the gauge recorded it. Every spool has one. Quote the flange number and we will send yours.
Eleven materials
Three lines, and what each one is for.
| Material | Code | Nozzle °C | Bed °C | Enclosure | Colours | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLA | PLA | 200–220 | 55–60 | No | £21.50 | |
| PLA Matte | PLA-M | 205–225 | 55–60 | No | £21.50 | |
| PLA Silk | PLA-S | 215–235 | 55–60 | No | £24.00 | |
| Recycled PETG | rPETG | 230–250 | 75–85 | No | £19.50 | |
| PETG | PETG | 230–250 | 75–85 | No | £23.00 | |
| ABS | ABS | 240–260 | 95–105 | Yes | £24.50 | |
| ASA | ASA | 245–265 | 95–105 | Yes | £27.00 | |
| Polycarbonate | PC | 270–290 | 100–115 | Yes | £39.00 | |
| PLA Carbon | PLA-CF | 210–230 | 55–60 | No | £34.00 | |
| Nylon Carbon | PA6-CF | 270–300 | 100–110 | Yes | £62.00 | |
| TPU 95A | TPU-95 | 220–240 | 40–55 | No | £32.00 |
Full drying schedules, speeds and fault notes are on the print profiles page.
Bay 4, Victoria Mills
A good building for making a long thin thing.
The mill was built in 1861 to spin worsted, and it wound yarn onto bobbins for a hundred and forty years. We took the old winding floor in 2021 because it already had the floor loading, the three-phase supply and the height above the die for a proper cooling bath.
None of that is romantic. It is a stone shed on a canal with good bones, and it happens to be the right shape for drawing a strand three hundred metres long and getting it onto a reel without putting a kink in it. The trade counter is the door on Wharf Street.
Delivery
Order by 14:00 for next working day, UK mainland. Free over £60 ex-VAT. Highlands and islands two to three days.
Trade and education
5 kg cardboard-core refills, pallet rates and 30-day terms. Trade pricing.
Packing
Dried to below 0.02% moisture, vacuum sealed with 50 g of desiccant and a humidity card that reads the day it was packed.
If it is wrong
Send the flange number to [email protected]. We pull the trace for that spool and reply with it.