Tobold's Blog
Friday, August 08, 2025
 
Justway - 3D printing service

This is a sponsored post, that is to say I accepted a free product and agreed to write about it. I don't normally do that. But when Justway offered this, it coincided with me needing a 3D printed part for a board game. The reason I haven't been writing anything about 3D printed game components since 2022 is that in 2023 I moved house, and I never unpacked my 3D printer. I used it too rarely, and the at home 3D printing technology is still relatively fiddly, and prone to problems if you use it rarely. Thus a service that prints your 3D objects for you is actually quite useful, even for somebody like me, who still has a 3D printer in a box in the attic. In addition, the part I wanted to have printed was player boards for Vantage, which are relatively flat, but nearly 300 mm x 200 mm large. That is larger than the print bed of my 3D printer, and thus I couldn't have possibly printed them myself.

Justway is a manufacturing service, which offers 3D printing, but also CNC machining, sheet metal forming, injection molding, and urethane casting. You upload a typical 3D CAD file (the .STL files for many 3D printable objects are readily available on the internet), state the process and material you want to have used, and Justway gives you a first estimated quote. If that is okay for you, an engineer validates that quote and technical feasibility, and you get a final quote including shipping cost. Once you paid that, they'll manufacture the item for you, and ship it to you from China. The whole process from .STL uploading to holding the part in my hand took 9 days, which I found surprisingly quick. But then, 3D printing is probably the cheapest and fastest option. And the one most likely to be useful to a regular person. You wouldn't want to do injection molding unless you needed hundreds or even thousands of identical parts.

By ordering 4 player boards 3D printed, I had the opportunity to check quality and consistency, and they are good. I can see that the industrial 3D printers Justway uses are a lot higher quality than a typical hobby 3D printer one might have at home. The 4 player boards are totally identical, no flaws, no warpage. Having had problems with 3D printing of large flat pieces before at home, I appreciate the quality.

For most people, the number of times they need a 3D printed part is probably low. I enjoyed my 3D printer as a hobby, but if you use it only rarely, the cost per piece is pretty high. When I was still playing D&D and printed lots of miniatures for that, the cost of the printer divided by hundreds of miniatures was a lot lower, and the material cost per print was also relatively low. Justway isn't terribly cheap, but it is cheaper than buying a 3D printer for a few items. Shipping cost becomes relatively important if you just need a few small items sent via Fedex from China. My application of 3D printed items for board game pieces is not really a cost efficient one for this service. But I can totally see the use of Justway being economically favorable for prototype production, or other applications where you need something manufactured occasionally.

- posted by Tobold @ 3:37 PM Permanent Link
Comments:
Thank you for the recommendation and clear review. I own a 3d printer and use it a lot but other manufacturing opens are good. I also don’t know how make this feel like a real post instead of a bot :)
Good content as always. But you should play ttrpg’s they are fun. However my play has evolved into more like yours due to time and schedule. Weekly sessions that fit time and play an interesting game.
# posted by Anonymous Nathan : 8/8/25 21:04
 
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