I'm looking for a person or company I can send a 3d printed object or just stl file to, and for a nominal fee, get a steel mold in return.
I want to pour some pieces from aluminum a bunch of times, without needing to screw around making perfect sand boxes every single time.
So steel mold sounds like the best bet, but finding a custom mold making center isn't working out to well for me at the moment
If you are sending them something, you probably need to send some sort of CAD file that they can manipulate. They will need to change the angles of certain surfaces to allow for the mold halves to come apart (google "draft angle".) They might also need to redesign for shrinkage.
I would talk to any local foundries and see if they have recommendations for places to get the molds made. Injection mold shops also might be able to point you in the right direction. What type of places have you talked to already?
In reply to Mr_Asa :
The closest things to local foundries are a blacksmith club and the remnants of the old steel mills as far as I've been able to find.
I've just found a handful of sketchy, poorly designed websites so far.
Really, I could probably mill a mold for what I need if I had access to one, and I'm trying to figure out how to stamp a mold with my press as another alternative.
If I felt like screwing around with yet another medium, lost foam casting would work, but that would mean translating 3d prints to Styrofoam and sounds like a lot more repetitive labor than I want to do.
IMO the "nominal fee" will be thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars.
"Metal Permanent Mold Casting" is what you're looking for. Some general info here:
jamscal said:IMO the "nominal fee" will be thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars.
"Metal Permanent Mold Casting" is what you're looking for. Some general info here:
I agree.
My Dad's career was as a foundry/metallurgical engineer, so this is in his wheelhouse. I'll shoot him an email and see what he thinks would be the best way for a hobbyist to make castings of an item without making a new mold every time.
RevRico said:In reply to Mr_Asa :
If I felt like screwing around with yet another medium, lost foam casting would work, but that would mean translating 3d prints to Styrofoam and sounds like a lot more repetitive labor than I want to do.
Lost PLA is a more direct means.
In reply to slantvaliant (Forum Supporter) :
Yea, and at 20 hours a print, still only leaves one a day. Not really worth the time unless I had a few more printers. I've also run into problems with the plastic not burning out right. Considered lost wax as well, but haven't had good luck with it in the past either.
I suspect it's going to come down to buying my own mill or finding a desktop cnc that can handle steel and making them on my own, but figure it was worth asking here first.
Injection molding or compression molding are the real answers if you have any scale/repeatability. Assuming volumes are low and design is simple ish a compression molding aluminum tool would be your best bet. Where are you located, I can probably get you a local ish molder and they'll have the right tool making contacts.
In reply to 84FSP :
Will compression molding handle aluminum casting? I've only seen it used to make composite or aluminum molds, not to actually make stuff from aluminum.
But I'm about 30 minutes east of Pittsburgh.
If you would like to send me the stl file I would take a look and see what I can do for you. I am a tool maker with 40+ years experience.
Honestly, cope and drag with greensand really isn't that bad of a deal to knock out. Set up a workbench that has a work surface that allows excess sand to fall through and be captured by a bucket and you don't really need to do cleanup. Print up a couple of patterns so you don't have to worry about centering them. With a little practice it will be almost as fast as a metal mold.
Hi
How large is the part? and can it be 4% smaller ?
You can make a mold to make lost wax castings , and send the waxes off to have them cast .
the mold can be silicone backed up with plaster ,
and you can buy a wax injector used on craigslist or ebay ,
the 4% smaller is to allow for the wax to shrink when it cools , and the casting to cool and shrink , 4% is an estimate , but close ,
we made a few hundred waxes for our last project.......
there may be a way to use the same mold idea and make lost foam , I never looked into it ,
Hope that helps
Maybe I need to add that all these parts will need machining to finish , this is just the first step
I have made many molds for investment castings, used both in aluminum and 316ss. An investment casting is probably going to be the easiest route.
I think no one can give you any idea of cost or best way to cast this until they see either a part or a 3d drawing. As well as how many shots are you trying to put through this mold and how much post processing you want to do to the wax part/finish part.
If you are trying to recreate an existing piece, post a picture; if its an idea and you have a solid model go ahead and post that.
I will try and check the thread later and see.
Here's a guy making graphite molds with a CNC machine.
Well in interest of staying on the good sides of the forum owners, I can't really post pictures.
I started a umm adult novelty business since SWMBO work schedule and kids school schedule mean I couldn't work outside of the house.
I'm using silicone, for now, and silicone is great and all, but in a bid to be different, and stands out from the hundreds of other shops, I was thinning it would be cool to make some of my more popular models out of cast aluminum, since I have a foundry and a big tote of already analysed ready to melt aluminum.
From a production standpoint, it would be considerably easier for me to make metal versions with steel or possibly graphite molds, 4 or 5 at a time, versus spending a day printing do maybe get a lost pla cast, or spending so much time setting up sand boxes.
I'm not ready to jump to metal production yet, probably won't be until spring or summer, just trying to get an idea of this is a $500 idea or a $5000 idea really.
But I guess an example would be something like a coke bottle, size and sort of profile wise.
Aluminum dorks?
Like some others here I'm in the plastics business and have been for most of my career. I can point you to some mold makers here in the Detroit area if you'd like. My guess is a single cavity steel mold would be about $2000-$3000.
You might want to look at Protolabs for tooling costs.
And I'm sort of snickering as I type this but don't forget to allow for shrinkage. Heh, heh.
The aluminum is going to shrink as it cools so your steel mold will need to be scaled up a bit. Although it doesn't sound like the product is high tolerance.
In reply to RevRico :
:lol:
So, cast aluminum can be porous. This can mean bad things for your particular use case. Might want to also look into some sort of specialty coating?
As a secondary idea. Look into semi-hollow castings, then maybe you can do interesting things with the inner cavity. As an idea, this particular ice cream scoop has a low-melting point solid in it, but it holds onto heat and transfers it very well. You run it under hot water for a little bit and it just cuts through ice cream. Hell, it almost gets hot enough you don't want to hold it. Might be an interesting party trick for your toys to be able to hold onto hot or cold sensations https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002U33RU/
In reply to Mr_Asa :
I hadn't thought about porosity. That is something I'll have to look at. Shrinkage is acceptable, I'm used to that with casting.
Can't imagine I'll get lucky enough to be able to use the same stuff the wood working people use, but I'm fairly certain they're using acrylic epoxy.
I wonder about delamination. Maybe I'll do a dirty lost foam casting and coat it in clear silicone to see if it stays on there.
What sort of volume are we talking about?
Size and weight of the part?
Material?
What are you doing to the part after its poured?
Dimensional accuracy concerns?
Soundness concerns?
I am a foundry engineer and happy to help but I need some more info to go from.
93gsxturbo said:What are you doing to the part after its poured?
RevRico said:Well in interest of staying on the good sides of the forum owners, I can't really post pictures.
I started a umm adult novelty business since SWMBO work schedule and kids school schedule mean I couldn't work outside of the house.
I'm using silicone, for now, and silicone is great and all, but in a bid to be different, and stands out from the hundreds of other shops, I was thinning it would be cool to make some of my more popular models out of cast aluminum, since I have a foundry and a big tote of already analysed ready to melt aluminum.
From a production standpoint, it would be considerably easier for me to make metal versions with steel or possibly graphite molds, 4 or 5 at a time, versus spending a day printing do maybe get a lost pla cast, or spending so much time setting up sand boxes.
I'm not ready to jump to metal production yet, probably won't be until spring or summer, just trying to get an idea of this is a $500 idea or a $5000 idea really.
But I guess an example would be something like a coke bottle, size and sort of profile wise.
Does it need to be solid or can it be slush cast so its hollow inside ?
I saw the other day a CNC printer that prints binder into casting sand layers. Vacuum out the loose unbound sand and voila, you have a perfect printed casting mold. I think the brand was ExOne. Might be overkill for what you are looking for, although I'd echo the sentiment that CNC milled molds like those used for injection molded cast parts can easily be 10's of thousands of dollars each
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