From one physical part to volume production
A fishing tackle founder came to us through Protolabs with a hand-finished part and no CAD file. Ten business days after the part arrived, he had his file. Thirteen months later, it runs his product line.
The situation
An independent fishing tackle company: one founder, no in-house CAD, no engineering staff. The part that defines his product is hand finished, with organic curves and a fine surface texture, and it existed in exactly one form: the physical object. No CAD, no drawings, no source files.
His manufacturer, Protolabs, needed a clean 3D model to produce it, and told him where to get one. From his project brief, day one: Protolabs had asked him to reach out to CADmore as soon as possible because of the detail in the part.
Why scanning was the only option
A machined bracket can be measured and remodeled. A hand-finished organic shape with specific design requirements can't; there are no dimensions to take. The only faithful path to a manufacturable file was a high-resolution 3D scan, then reverse engineering: rebuilding the geometry as clean, editable CAD on top of the scan data.
What we did
Before quoting anything, our engineers reviewed his photos and flagged a limit: one region we doubted could be cleanly parametric modeled. He got that in writing, with an image of the area, before any money changed hands. We said we would give it our best shot and be up front about the risk.
The quote came in two parts, a design consultation and then the scan and reverse engineering package, with expectations set in writing: 7 to 12 business days from payment and receipt of the part, delivered in a neutral 3D format his manufacturer could work from. He approved and paid the same day.
The part went into the scan queue the day it arrived. Mid project, unprompted, we sent him the raw scan preview so he could see progress before a holiday weekend. When he suggested a modeling approach partway through, it was in front of the engineer the same day. Ten business days after the part reached us, inside the quoted window, he had his STEP file, ready to take straight to Protolabs.
Every exchange ran through the portal in writing. The project closed without a single scope dispute.
Thirteen months later
He emailed us, unprompted:
“I built a business out of what you guys did for me and I plan to keep growing!”
- He is manufacturing at volume through Protolabs, off the file CADmore built.
- His production master today is a lightly modified version of that original STEP file.
- He sent a second part for scanning and reverse engineering. We quoted it in six minutes; he approved and paid within a day.
“There's lots of people in my Fishing world that can do scans and CAD, but I have no desire to deal with any of them.”
Where CADmore fits
We built the file. Production stayed with Protolabs. CADmore does the design and engineering step, your manufacturer makes the parts, and our advice stays unbiased because we aren't selling you production.