FAQ

Taibhse Designs is a new Irish start-up design company based out of County Roscommon. Started by Paul Brennan after graduating from Maynooth University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Product Design (Marketing & Innovation). We aim to become one of Irelands top Design for Hire companies in Additive Manufacturing, catering to other Start-Ups, Students and SME’s requiring 3D printing and prototyping services as well as offering services in custom props & commissioned replica designs for avid collectors seeking a truly unique piece for their collections or film and television shows in the making looking for props and assets to be taken from concept to piece you can hold in hand.

At Taibhse Designs we offer a variety of services within the areas of Design, our primary business is Additive Manufacturing, we can 3D print parts on demand for our clients be they Students working on projects or businesses needing parts for a prototype or other various uses. We also work on custom commissioned projects based on a clients Design brief that they provide, these commissions can range from custom prop designs for Television or Movie use, replica designs of items from games, shows, comics and movies for private collectors, or for companies or individuals wanting a physical prototype made based on concept art they may have. Please read on further for more in depth details of our services.

3D Printing is the process of taking 3D files designed and modelled in CAD from their digital form to items you can hold in hand. This is achieved by slicing the file into many thin layers and through a process, producing each layer out one at a time on the printer in succession. 3D Printing or Additive Manufacturing is the reverse of standard manufacturing processes, instead of starting with a block of material and removing material until you have the desired part, 3D printing starts with an empty space and proceeds to add material line by line, layer by layer until you have the desired part. In this way additive manufacturing cuts down on the amount of wasted material produced and is thus more environmentally friendly.

Currently we offer FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) / FFF (Fused Filament Fabrication). Parts are produced by extruding a molten material through a nozzle in a predetermined path, layer by layer to produce a finished piece. This is the most popular form of 3D printing currently.

Additive Manufacturing is used in a variety of industries from Fashion to Medical as well as by students, businesses and for prototyping concepts quickly and evaluating designs and parts before committing to an expensive full-scale manufacturing and assembly strategy. 3D printing is considered to be the third industrial revolution, growing each year more and more in popularity and finding new applications. At Taibhse Designs, our Additive Manufacturing services cater best to students needing parts prototyped for projects, help with design and designing with 3D printing in mind as well as for other start-ups companies and Small – Medium enterprises who require low cost, quick part production for prototyping needs.

Currently at Taibhse Designs, we offer the following printable materials,

PLA - A biodegradable thermoplastic derived from renewable resources, typically corn starch, starch, cassava roots or sugarcane. This is one of the most popular 3D printing materials.
ABS - Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, a common thermoplastic polymer popular with 3D printing alongside PLA. Lego bricks are produced using ABS plastic.
TPU - Thermoplastic polyurethane, a popular flexible Thermoplastic Elastomer, rubber like filament.

In short maybe?

We typically keep neutral colours in stock such as white, grey and black, if you require a custom colour that we do not offer, please contact us via email or the contacts form on our home page so we can check availability of that colour.

If we do not currently stock that colour, we will have to order it in which will add an acquisition charge as well as additional time to complete your piece as we wait for the filament to ship and arrive in office to use.

Our printers have a max printing volume of 210mm x 210mm x 240mm for PLA & ABS and a max printing volume of 180mm x 180mm x 210mm for TPU.

Projects and parts exceeding these printing size limits will need to be broken up into separate segments that fit these printing volumes prior to printing. Get in touch with us if you need any help slicing your parts.

Time per print varies depending on scale, complexity of part and layer height / detail quality. A print done at a 0.1mm layer height will take significantly longer than a part printed at 0.25mm layer height. Typq1ically small parts under 100mm volume can be done in under 5 hours, while larger volume parts may take up to 15 hours or more, should they take up most of the printing volume. For example, all of the Iron Bot project, which was 3d printed, represents just over 200 hours in total of 3d printing time carried out over 2 weeks total on a dedicated machine.

This is a common question we are faced with regularly at Taibhse Designs, and the answer often surprises many clients. While a Funko Pop toy Portal Gun from Rick and Morty might cost no more than €30 with shipping, a scratch built fully functional and scaled replica easily breaks €300 in material costs alone plus then doubling that to account for the hundreds of hours that go into making, sanding, painting, wiring and assembling a single unit plus any needed coding, all done by a qualified designer by hand, which then has to be packed carefully and shipped which is then a cost in itself. While an off the shelf low budget mass produced toy might be at most €30 – €60, we cannot match these prices, nor will we try to.

Many of our pieces represent hundreds of dedicated design hours, weeks and months of labour that need to be accounted for, for the creation of a truly unique piece for a client, thus while costs may be quite high to some, we believe the end result and quality speaks for itself, with a truly unique piece for your collection that is a far higher quality piece than an off the shelf toy and represents immense attention to detail and true care by a designer to deliver a quality piece to a client.

Possibly, depending on scale, budget, function and materials needed, we evaluate custom designs on a case by case basis but do our utmost best to turn our clients dreams into reality. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via email or through the contacts form on our home pay to discuss your design.

Maybe, everything in our portfolio represents a finished piece already in a client’s hands or a piece made for fun by our designers. A repeat project depends on the scale of the project, cost and amount of work that will go into it, as well as how it may affect other ongoing projects. In most cases we are happy to make another piece and work to improve in the process if all necessary materials can still be acquired and any moulds and CAD files used in the first commission still exist and are usable. To see if we can remake a piece from the past for you, please get in touch with us today via email or by using our contacts form on the home page.

This is another common question we get regularly at Taibhse Designs, and the answer is it depends. The time it takes to finish and ship a commission is evaluated on a case by case basis and depends on multiple factors, including how long it may take to get materials in hand before any work can commence plus how complicated a piece is to make, what manufacturing processes will be used and how many design hours it will require.

For example, Iron Bot from our portfolio took two weeks straight of 3D printing to get all of his pieces made. Over 200 hours of printing that had to be spread over that time and then up to 300 hours spread over 2 months of sanding, filler, priming and more sanding before he was ready for painting which ended up being another week before he was finally put together. In all, Iron Bot had up to 4 months of time invested in his creation, a standard time frame for a complex piece of this size which included modelling everything in CAD from scratch.

At Taibhse Designs we do our best to turn around each commission in a timely manor to satisfy our clients, often working overtime to ensure excellent service.

Cost of shipping depends on where in the world a piece needs to ship to, how big it is, its weight and if any special packing is needed. Shipping is done on a case by case basis. For example, the Altered Carbon backpack costs approximately €60 for tracked fast shipping to the USA.

Email us today with the details of your project and we can get you an estimate on the projects shipping costs.

Probably

Within the limits of law, we can ship anywhere that has an address a mail man can reach. Please get in touch and let us know what you'd like to commission and where you are and then we can let you know weather we can deliver it to you not.

The following are approximate times for delivery time, please note that these times are estimates and depend on the size and weight of the piece to be delivered, times are typically faster than the following estimates by up to 3 days.

Ireland
2 - 4 working days

UK
5 - 8 working days

EU
5 - 8 working days

USA
5 - 10 working days

Canada
5 - 10 working days

Australia
8 - 14 working days

Please also allow for the estimated printing time / build time for your project on top of these shipping times.