Piece by piece, 3D print shop makes its mark in Mountain View

Tucked in a busy strip mall, a small store hums with the sound of a 3D printer laying down filament on a tray, creating a geometric pattern that over time will become a palm-sized plastic object.

“It’s no more complicated than a glue gun,” said Jason Reynolds, owner of the 3D printing store, Jinxbot.

While not quite as easy to use as a glue gun, Reynolds made the process look simple with his row of 3D printers neatly lined up on a counter. All of them were primed to receive digital files that could turn abstract ideas into a tangible reality.

Jinxbot got its start in a Mountain View garage with a single 3D printer, later expanding to two locations: a small storefront at 693 Calderon Ave. and a larger workspace on Old Middlefield Way.

A self-described tinkerer, Reynold said his interest in 3D printing began about 20 years ago when he was a student taking engineering and technology classes in high school and college. “I saw a potential there. It was a machine that could automatically make whatever you want, and I thought there was some magic to that,” he said. Reynolds’ attraction to 3D printing developed into a full-fledged hobby after graduation as he started to source printers online, looking for the best deals and learning more about the machines by taking them apart and putting them back together again.

When he lost his job at a solar company in 2015, Reynolds decided to turn his hobby into a full-time business. His wife gave him a year to try it out and since then, Reynolds has steadily built up a following of clients who appreciate his quick turnaround time (48-72 hours), reliability and willingness to troubleshoot ideas and prototypes.

“A lot of service bureaus that have popped up over time have become these black holes of where you can submit a part. And then once you submit your part, you’re like, ‘Am I going to get the part that I wanted? Is there going to be any issues?’ They don’t give any feedback, they’re trying to automate the process,” Reynolds said.

The conversations he has with customers differentiates his service from the rest of the pack, Reynolds said. “At Jinxbot, we care about our customers’ projects. We want people to succeed, we want people to find value in 3D, not in Jinxbot, but in 3D printing in general,” he added.

Serving a wide range of customers, from individual hobbyists to small and medium-sized businesses as well as large corporations like Google, Facebook and Apple, Reynolds has picked up all kinds of jobs. Electronic enclosures top the list as the most frequent prints while requests to create body parts are the most memorable.

Stanford University has asked for larynxes, which students use to practice tracheostomies, Reynolds said. He also has printed human heads, brains and prosthetic limbs. Reynolds stays aways from anything related to weaponry for liability reasons, he said.

Reynolds cited the customers and creative process as the most satisfying part of the job. It’s not necessarily the finished product, he said, adding that he has helped many clients get their businesses off the ground by helping them with prototypes that eventually make it to market.

Reynolds also has started a nonprofit, separate from Jinxbot yet still related as it focuses on recycling 3D print materials. Jinxbot is a certified green business, Reynolds said. The non-profit takes it a step further and works with Precious Plastic, which reclaims and reuses plastic scrap materials for other functional purposes.

The power of 3D printing to fix broken parts also makes it an environmentally attractive solution to keep objects out of landfills, Reynolds said. “Just because you can’t find it in the store, that small little replacement part, doesn’t mean it can’t be made for you and affordably,” he said.

Making 3D technology more accessible to the public, whether it is for a hobby project, business venture or a functional need is part of the mission of Jinxbot, Reynolds said, adding that he was there to help shepherd clients through the process.

“It doesn’t have to be a mystery,” he said.