Investment Casting Patterns

Accelerate your casting production timelines with high quality, fast prototype and production casting patterns with 3D Systems On Demand Manufacturing services

Investment casting, often known as lost-wax casting, is a manufacturing methodology that has been around for thousands of years. While there has been some degree of automation in the foundry industry, the need for the pattern around which to make the cast shape remains a constant –and waiting for tooling to create the patterns can take weeks or months, costing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

3D printed casting patterns offer a tool-free, fast, reliable and accurate alternative to patterns created using tooling, reducing the costs of creating pattern by as much as 90%, and produced in one-tenth of the time. With two key 3D printing materials –SLA plastic and wax -that are fully industry-tested, your casting patterns can be competed in days or a couple of weeks, with little to no restriction on the size of the casted part.

3D Systems On Demand Manufacturing offers rapid production of casting patterns from its production facilities worldwide. With expert teams who have been producing investment casting patterns for more than 20 years, using additive platforms and materials that are being constantly refined and updated to meet ever more rigorous standards, On Demand Manufacturing can meet your needs for prototype and production-grade casting patterns.

3D printed patterns can be created quickly, and deliver more complex parts than can be created with injection molded wax patterns. We use both a plastic process and a wax process depending on the needs and applications of our customers.

SLA QuickCast® Patterns

QuickCast is aSLA 3D printing build style trademarked by 3D Systems and was created to meet the needs of the investment casting industry. The QuickCast build style consists of a hollow SLA pattern with an internal hexagonal support structure that adds strength to the pattern, allows for easy drainage, and facilitates collapse of the pattern during thermal expansion to help avoid shell cracking. QuickCast patterns offer invaluable shrink and gating information prior to hard tooling, large pattern size, smooth surfaces, and accelerated timelines over tooling to create wax patterns.

• Hollow build style reduces the amount of material to burn out
• Commonly used by the casting industry
• Capable of producing large assemblies
• Highly stable Accura^®  resins developed specifically for foundry applications
• Rapid production compared to traditional tooling
• Provides invaluable shrink and gating information prior to hard tooling
• Low moisture absorption and expansion of pattern
• High dimensional stability

ProJet® Wax Patterns:

Many foundries like working with wax patterns. Whether only one or hundreds of patterns are needed quickly, you can count on our ProJet® 3D printed wax patterns to fit intoyour foundry processing procedures, just like any injection molded wax pattern. We provide high detail, high resolution ProJet wax patterns with the highest levels of surface finish required for demanding casting applications.

• Excellent for high detail, high resolution builds
• Highest surface level finishes and complexity
• Quick lead times
• Can be created without tooling
• Accelerates the casting process
• No special finishing required
• Lower cost of initial development
• Capable of producing the finishes required by the aerospace and medical industries
• Easiest patterns to process