About us - Origin Story

About us - Origin Story

I was a young wife with 3 kids, holding my new baby on the couch watching my husband pour hours of his paternity leave into a 3D printer that wasn't working.

We were young and had just spent more money than I was comfortable with on this new machine that made plastic things I didn't like, and I knew nothing about.

My husband had high hopes for this new machine, and after 3 months of adjusting and calibrating they all seemed to be crashing down. 

a woman holding her baby

I felt so bad seeing him waste so much time trying to get this 3D printer to work, and I was angry at the people who made it (who wouldn't help us out or had any any concept of what good customer service looks like even though they had a US location).

Before he threw it off a cliff, I asked him to print me something with his favorite printer that always made good prints to take his mind off of how depressed he was over this mess.

He used a new filament sample he special his UK friend told him about, and that's when everything changed.

He was able to completely change my mind about 3D printing with a little house made from PLA MINERAL.

I am not into plastics, and I was never into 3D printing before this house. But the way the material looked and felt was completely different from anything I had ever seen him print before.

A woman holding a 3D printed house smiling at the camera

Then my husband started using the new filaments with the ‘messed up’ printer and you’ve probably already guessed that the better materials actually worked.

The better filaments finally gave us finished prints off a printer that could not finish a benchmark benchy with the low quality filaments (no brand name trashing).

I watched my husband get so low and depressed and waste months of his time, his precious paternity leave, because the materials he was using were low quality and causing problems we didn't understand as beginners.

 

After that horrible experience we decided to help other 3D printers going through the same thing. 

We told them what to do and where to get the same stuff (the good stuff)- but they didn't want to pay the ridiculous international shipping. So we decided to roll up our sleeves and solve that problem for others like us; people looking to create the best prints possible that were tired of being lied to by other companies that only cared about the bottom line instead of the integrity of the materials.

 

3D print in Fiberlogy Nylon PA12+CF15-

We had to learn about international shipping, taxes, import tariffs, lots of impatient shipping people, and more business things than we ever would have thought we could do on our own. All this while raising 3 boys under 5 years and working a full time job with a 2 hour commute.

That's how we knew this was a passion, and would become another part of our lives. Instead of consuming us, 3D printing became a part of us. 

As we got started planning the core vision for the company my husband felt led to name the company Narrow Path 3D to speak to anyone looking for a better way to print: the narrow path of high quality 3D printing.

After investing every spare hour of time and uncomfortably close to every penny we had saved during our married life, Narrow Path 3D LLC was born.

In its first 6 months, Narrow Path 3D has helped 100's of new, satisfied customers happily creating some of the most beautfil prints you will ever see (when they can share their work).

We’ve also personally been contracted for high end printing jobs from clients wanting to work with us because we’re associated with a high quality brand (Fiberlogy).

Now I get to see people like my husband experience the difference the materials they use make in their prints.

a man holding a 3D printed cube smiling at the camera

And in the end, all of this means my husband spends less time calibrating his settings and has more time to spend printing. He prints things he wants to print, and I can spend more time with a happy husband, doing what he loves.

And that’s why I’m so excited for you to get some Fiberlogy filaments in your hands and see the difference for yourself. 

Create you own Custom Sample pack with our Samples Collection or our "Deluxe" Sample Pack filled to the brim with our customer favorites, and trust me when I say from experience you'll never want to go back!

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