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In custom manufacturing, acquiring a price for a custom part used to involve multiple emails, multiple days waiting for a response, and adjusting specifications via back-and-forth email threads. Using an online Prototype Quote Service, this tedious process is modernized and digitized to provide a price in a matter of minutes or hours. This paper outlines ... Read more

Choosing a prototype manufacturing company is a crucial step in product development. Poor decision-making can lead to the quality and cost of the product being adversely affected and ultimately lead to the product being unable to be launched. A good decision will result in effective partnering, increasing the speed of product development and reducing product ... Read more

When product developers and procurement professionals look for precision components, they face challenges finding a CNC machining manufacturer that provides consistent quality without going over budget and providing delays. China has become a leader in the field, not just because of providing lower costs, but because their manufacturing ecosystem has become a balance across all ... Read more

China's CNC machining industry is not one entity spread across the country. After decades of integration, it can be segmented into three highly specialized manufacturing clusters, each with unique strengths and competitive advantages. For global buyers, understanding which cluster a CNC machining firm operates in is the first step in the buying process to find ... Read more

As additive manufacturing techniques continue to advance, the challenge of selecting the appropriate 3D printing techniques for engineers, product designers and buyers has become more significant. Multiple 3D printing techniques exist with unique advantages, disadvantages and appropriate applications. This guide attempts to assist you with the compromise of cost versus speed versus quality. Step 1: Define ... Read more

3D printed prototypes do not look like the final product when they first come off the printer. They can be finished using different techniques, but will have visible texture features, support marks and layer lines. This is true for all types of additive manufacturing, be it SLA, SLS, MJF or DMLS. Consequently, post-processing separates rough prototypes ... Read more

When a batch is small, every single part matters. There is a common misconception in manufacturing: low volume means low quality. At first glance, the reasoning appears simple. When only a limited quantity of parts is manufactured, perhaps the tolerances do not need to be as precise or the inspections may not need to be ... Read more

The injection molding manufacturing process provides a great way to produce high precision parts at a high production volume. During this process, a mold is created and hot, liquid plastic is injected into this mold. Because of this technique's accuracy and versatility in the design and material, in addition to its great cost-benefit for manufacturing ... Read more

You have a finished design. Your deadline is tight. And now you have to wait two full days just to get a price. That doesn’t make sense. Yet most traditional machine shops and online brokerages treat this 48-hour wait as normal. At GD Prototyping, we disagree. The RFQ process should never be the slowest part ... Read more

What Is Small Batch Injection Molding? Small batch injection molding is exactly what it sounds like: using professional injection molding machines to produce a small number of plastic parts — usually between 100 and 10,000 pieces. For years, most manufacturers would not even talk to you if you needed fewer than 10,000 parts. They wanted ... Read more

Low Quantity Injection Molding is changing the way companies bring new products to market in 2026. If you've ever waited two months for plastic parts, you know the frustration. The old rule was simple: you either paid a fortune for steel molds and waited forever, or you used fragile 3D-printed parts that broke during testing. ... Read more

Introduction: Why a Great Plastic Blend Can Be a Headache Standard plastics such as ABS lend themselves easily to precision machining using a CNC mill. An ABS+PC blend, on the other hand, will cause problems. This tough, heat-resistant blend is popular among product designers, but machining this blend reveals the dark side of this blend: stress cracks ... Read more