Reverse engineering & scan-to-CAD — Roxboro, NC

No drawing? Send the part. We’ll make the drawing.

Broken, worn, obsolete, or never documented in the first place. We 3D scan the original, build the CAD model, and machine you a new one — all in the same shop, with one point of contact.

Send Us the Part How It Works
SCAN-TO-CAD SPEC REV A
InputPhysical part — broken is fine
Drawing requiredNo
OutputCAD model + machined part
QuoteWithin 24 hours
Minimum qtyOne piece
MaterialsMetals · exotics · plastics
NO DRAWING REQUIRED 3D SCANNING IN-HOUSE SCAN AND MACHINE, ONE SHOP QUOTES IN 24 HOURS
THE PROBLEM

The part exists. The drawing does not.

The machine is from 1987. The manufacturer was acquired twice and then dissolved. The only documentation is the part itself, and it is sitting in two pieces on your bench.

Most shops want a print before they will quote. That is the whole problem — if you had a print, you would not need help. Sending the part out to one company for scanning and a different one for machining means two vendors, two lead times, and a finger-pointing contest when the fit is wrong.

HOW IT WORKS

Part in, part out — one shop the whole way

Scanning and machining under one roof means the person building the model is the person cutting the part.

01

Send the original

Ship it or drop it off. Broken, worn, corroded, or in pieces is all workable — we will tell you honestly if too much is missing.

02

We scan it

3D scanning captures the geometry, including the shapes nobody ever dimensioned.

03

We build the CAD

The scan becomes a clean, manufacturable model. Worn surfaces get restored to intended geometry rather than copied as-worn.

04

We machine it

Straight onto the mill or lathe. You get the new part, and the CAD file so you are never stuck like this again.

A DETAIL THAT MATTERS

Copying a worn part reproduces the wear

A scan captures what the part looks like now, including twenty years of wear, a bent flange, and a galled bearing seat. Machining directly from raw scan data gives you a brand-new copy of a broken part.

So we do not do that. The scan becomes a proper CAD model with the wear interpreted out of it: bores returned to round, faces returned to flat, and standard hardware sizes recognized as standard. Where original intent is genuinely ambiguous, we ask instead of guessing.

TYPICAL JOBS

What people send us

  • Obsolete machine components where the OEM is gone or the part is discontinued
  • Broken castings and housings that need a machined replacement
  • Legacy production tooling, fixtures, and change parts
  • Worn wear-items you would rather stock than wait on
  • Undocumented parts inherited with used equipment
  • Discontinued automotive, motorsports, and restoration hardware
  • Existing parts that need a modification, not just a copy
  • Physical prototypes that need to become CAD for the first time
CASE STUDY

From broken original to installed replacement

Placeholder — replace with your real reverse engineering job. Structure it as: the equipment and what failed, why a replacement was not available, what the downtime was costing, how the scan and model were handled, the turnaround, and the result. Two photos — the broken original and the finished part — will do more selling than any paragraph.

Broken original
— replace with photo
Scan / CAD model
— replace with screenshot
Finished part
— replace with photo
WHY RPM

Scanning and machining in the same building

01

One vendor, one accountability

The person building the model is the person cutting the part. Nothing gets lost in a handoff between a scanning service and a machine shop.

02

You keep the CAD

The model is yours. Next time that part fails, you have a file instead of a scavenger hunt.

03

Broken is not a blocker

Cracked, worn, or in pieces is routine here. If a critical feature is genuinely unrecoverable, we say so before you pay for a scan.

04

Improve it while it’s open

If the original failed because of a design weakness, we can talk about a fillet, a material change, or a thicker section instead of faithfully reproducing the failure.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Before you ship us a broken part

How broken is too broken?
If the critical features still exist somewhere across the pieces, we can usually work with it. Cracked, chipped, worn, and snapped-in-two are all normal. What is genuinely hard is a feature that is completely missing with no reference for what it was. Send photos first and we will tell you honestly before you pay for shipping.
Do I get the CAD file?
Yes. The model is delivered with the parts, typically as STEP plus a native file. You own it.
How long does the whole thing take?
Quotes come back within 24 hours of us seeing the part or clear photos. Scan-and-model adds time on top of machining, so plan on longer than a straightforward print-to-part job. The quote will give you a specific date rather than a range.
Can you match the original material?
Usually. If the original material is unknown, we can often identify it well enough from application, appearance, and machining behavior to pick a sound equivalent. When it genuinely matters — a pressure part, a wear surface, something structural — we will tell you what we can and cannot determine rather than guessing quietly.
What if I need several of them?
Better economics for you. The scanning and modeling cost is one-time, so the second and subsequent parts are much cheaper. Many customers have us make a spare while we are set up, precisely so the next failure is not an emergency.
Will you reverse engineer a competitor’s patented product?
No. We reproduce parts for maintenance, repair, and legitimate replacement of equipment you own. We do not clone patented products for resale, and we will decline jobs that look like that.
Can I just get the CAD without the parts?
Yes, scan-to-CAD is available as a standalone service if you want the model for your own use or to manufacture elsewhere.