A new trend for orders combining full-mold casting and 3D sand printing

Full-mold casting and printed casting (using molds made in a 3D sand printer) offer many benefits for mechanical engineers who are looking for castings for one-off or small-series parts. Neither process requires an expensive wooden pattern.

Castings for machine components tend to fall into one of the two camps:

• Full mold casting for very large parts, typically with complex shapes but not too thin-walled, with less high demands on dimensional accuracy and surface quality, for example if only one side is machined (typical example: machine bed or work table)
• Printed casting for complex, core-heavy, thin-walled, intricate or particularly precise and dimensionally accurate parts (typical example: x, y, z slides, milling heads, housings with cooling fins or visible surfaces, consoles or components with many openings)

The right choice between the two proccesses is not always immediately obvious. That’s why mixed orders are currently proving popular at Römheld & Moelle, where machine designers increasingly order all the castings needed for a machine system from a single source, but have them made using a mix of 3D sand printing and full mold casting, depending on suitability and specific requirements.

Managing Director Rudi Riedel explains: “Because we offer both processes flexibly in-house, we can offer customers the best, most cost-effective combination for the parts they need – even if the parts vary greatly. The mixed order can either be cast and delivered together, or processed at the highest possible speed and sent in separate deliveries. This makes the process of buying castings incredibly easy. Our machine construction customers really appreciate this.”

Not tried printed casting yet? The calculator on the 3D sand printing platform CASTFAST shows casting-specific prices and delivery dates: https://castfast.de

Find out more about full mold casting here: https://www.roemheld-moelle.de/en-en/competencies/full-mold-casting/

Caption: Full-mold casting and 3D sand-printed molds rub shoulders at Römheld & Moelle.