ForgeShaw is the R&D arm of a precision engineer who grew up in the workshop. We build manufacturing software that works because it's built by someone who knows what a tolerance actually means.
Director at PNC Precision Engineers — an Employee Ownership Trust aerospace and defence manufacturer serving clients including MBDA, Parker Hannifin, and Ultra Electronics. 11 employees, 27 CNC machines, £1.8M turnover.
Started machining at age 7 in his grandfather's workshop. Five-year advanced apprenticeship at GRF Engineering, then two decades progressing to production manager and director. Now channelling that deep manufacturing knowledge into software that solves real problems on the shop floor.
Shaw Research & Development Ltd is the independent R&D vehicle for everything that comes next.
Aerospace CNC machining quotes in seconds. Upload a STEP file, get instant pricing powered by real CAD geometry analysis — bounding box, volume, feature complexity, surface area. Built for the tolerances and materials defence contractors actually use.
Streamlined CNC quoting for general engineering. Simpler interface, faster results. Designed for shops that need quick, accurate quotes without the aerospace overhead. STEP file analysis with configurable material and process rates.
Free browser-based engineering tools. 2D CAD sketching with snap-to-grid and dimensioning. 3D part viewer with B-rep edge wireframes. STEP to GLB converter with FreeCAD tessellation and Blender auto-smooth normals. No installs, no plugins.
The public face of Shaw Research & Development Ltd. Company information, project portfolio, and contact details. The umbrella under which all ForgeShaw products are developed, tested, and deployed.
Server-side STEP file processing with FreeCAD and Blender. Bounding box extraction, volume calculation, feature detection, B-rep edge wireframes, and mesh tessellation.
25 years of CNC programming and production management distilled into pricing algorithms. Material rates, process times, and complexity scoring based on real shop floor data.
Multi-platform AI collaboration — Claude for application architecture, GPT for infrastructure, Grok for coding challenges. 145+ applications built in 18 months through strategic AI partnership.
Flask and FastAPI backends, Three.js and Canvas frontends. Gunicorn, Nginx, systemd services, Tailscale mesh networking. DigitalOcean infrastructure with Cloudflare CDN.
Direct experience with MBDA, Parker Hannifin, Ultra Electronics, and Thales supply chains. Understanding of AS9100 quality requirements, ITAR considerations, and defence contract workflows.
From concept to deployed product in hours, not months. Server provisioning, domain configuration, SSL, and production deployment — built, tested, and live in a single session.
Shaw Research & Development Ltd is based in the Lake District, England. Whether you need manufacturing software, CAD processing tools, or AI-integrated engineering solutions — we build things that work because we've used the machines they're built for.
chris@forgeshaw.com