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New Forge Engineering: Forging ahead A trip to a well-attended SolidWorks/Markforged event in Perth in 2019 identified a yawning gap in the local market that New Forge Engineering has moved fast to fill. By Brent Ballinski.
Michael Tuckey, now New Forge’s Technical Director, headed to the seminar, keen to learn more about what was on offer from the fastgrowing US manufacturer of 3D printing technology. “Mike went down to the event as he’d been looking at 3D printers and what was in industry,” recalls Andrew Day, Managing Director and Founder of New Forge. “The main questions that were being asked from people in Perth – about 150 of whom attended this seminar – was ‘Do they offer Markforged as a service?’ They could see the quality of the parts being produced on the Markforged machines. And the answer was ‘No’.” A case became clear for the company, which is separate from but has its origins in Caldertech Australia, a company that specialises in high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipework solutions. Michael and Andrew both worked at the UK-based Caldertech’s local subsidiary, which Andrew purchased in 2019. They imported UKmade products but found some had to be redesigned or adapted for Australian customers in the water and oil & gas sectors, and the company had adopted 3D printing to achieve this end. “We were looking at redesigning tools and manufacturing custom tools for the HDPE industry, and to bring manufacturing back to Australia,” explains Andrew. “The two companies really do complement each other and deliver innovative products.” New Forge’s core business is to offer an in-demand bureau service out of Malaga, with a collection of machines able to print in polymer, composite and metals. It was established in 2019, and in an interesting bit of timing, was officially launched in March 2020 – the month the COVID-19 pandemic really began to have an impact. Reflected in a series of positive results in the Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index (Australian PMI) beginning in October last year, Andrew says there’s been a definite uptick in business from manufacturing clients. Where R&D projects were put on hold, they are now back on the boil. “Since January things have really ramped up,” Andrew observes. “So those projects that we were talking about, most of them have come to fruition. We are hearing people say we want to reshore
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and secure our supply chain by bringing manufacturing back into Australia. “Quite a few people are saying this, but is it happening as yet? I’m not sure … I still feel that there’s a lot of work to do to get the cost right for people to take advantage of a local supply chain and not look overseas. I believe we’re on the right track to do this”
Building a bank As a new bureau service will, New Forge has grown a collection of 3D printers, as well as associated services such as 3D scanning, reverse engineering, product design and prototyping, welding and CNC machining. The company’s collection of printers that can work in composites stands at ten units, by Andrew’s count, including Markforged printers, three Onyx One, a MarkTwo fused filament fabrication (FFF) machine, desktop-sized printers and two X7 machines (designed for industrial-scale use). Marforged’s Onyx feedstock (nylon with chopped carbon fibre reinforcement) gets the most use of any filament type. When more strength is needed, New Forge customers look to continuous fibre reinforcement of a printed part. “Which, as a service is fantastic,” Andrew adds. “Because we can throw a file into Eiger, a quick check to make sure it’s printable, then we can just press print.” Founded in 2013, Markforged announced an agreement this February that will see the Massachusetts-based company listed on the NYSE and valued at over US$2bn. Andrew speaks enthusiastically about the Markforged ecosystem’s reliability, noting that the range of ground covered by customers is vast. “We’ve printed some amazing jobs so far,” says Andrew. “A satellitelooking part using continuous carbon fibre, moulds for plastic and rubber materials. We’ve printed a custom tool for a company that carries out service work on mining equipment. We’ve printed parts for a saw mill to help move large slabs of timber on top of benches to helping school students with their class projects. “This is the breadth of industries that can benefit from additive manufacturing, and what we’re seeing come through for 3D printing and its uses. The custom tool was for a guy who couldn’t get to tension one of the belts on an engine. He only had a very small,
