Vacuum Casting Services
Bridge the Gap From Prototype to Production – Global delivery in 10 days or less
- Fast turnaround
- Affordability
- Capable of producing large parts
- Superior surface finish to injection molding
- Color options
- Repeatability
Start Your Instant Quote
STEP Â Â Â STP Â Â Â SLDPRT Â Â Â IPT Â Â Â PRT Â Â Â SAT Â Â Â IGES Â Â Â IGS Â Â Â CATPART Â Â Â X_T Â Â Â OBJ Â Â Â STL files
All uploaded files are secure and confidential
What Is Vacuum Casting?
Vacuum casting, refers to Urethane casting or Polyurethane casting, is a casting process for elastomers using vacuum to draw the liquid material into the mold, thus making plastics and rubber components. As an excellent adaptable manufacturing process, vacuum casting is capable of producing complex parts with intricate details.
Making vacuum casting part is a shortcut for quality validation at early stage. It’s a solution to speed up product development process as vacuum casting can create small batches of high-quality parts in short time. And those parts are suitable for pre-launch product testing, functional testing and validation, concept models and prototypes, etc. Vacuum casting prototyping is an economical manufacturing solution, let’s take a look at the process of silicone vacuum casting.
Designing Parts
for Vacuum Casting
In vacuum casting, you can expect the general shrinkage rate — the difference between the master pattern and the cast part — to be approximately 0.15 to 0.25 per cent. This is less than the general shrinkage rate for injection moulded plastics.
While the process has many advantages, it also has its limitations. Simple design modifications such as adjusting rib thickness can help minimize sink effects and ensure better part quality. Check out how to design bosses, undercuts and more in our Vacuum Casting Design Guide.
Source your
vacuum cast parts at GL
Use this section to describe your company and the services you offer. You could share your company’s story and details about why you are in business. The goal is to create a connection with the visitor and give them confidence to work with you.
How Vacuum Casting Works
Step 1.
Master Pattern Making
Before applying silicone coating, it's essential to prepare the original model. Prototyping can be done through CNC machining or 3D printing. Once the prototype is ready, ensure that the surface of the original model is clean, dust-free, and oil-free.
Step 2.
Silicone Mold Making​
Our 3D printing rapid prototyping services are ideal for 3D printed plastics and metals, with extensive material and finishing options available. These additive manufacturing technologies can also sometimes be used for production.
Step 3.
Casting Process
Rapid tooling (bridge tooling or prototype tooling) refers to the rapid CNC machining of metal tooling for injection molding. It is therefore the first step toward rapid injection molding.
Step 4.
Small batch replica manufacturing
Rapid sheet metal prototyping is a set of rapid prototyping services for the production of sheet metal parts. This includes various forming, cutting, and assembly processes for manipulating the sheet metal stock in different ways.
Why Choose GreatLight
for Vacuum Casting Services?
Unmatched Lead Time
We combine our extensive technical experiences and advanced technologies to deliver superior urethane casting services with faster lead times.
Flexible Color Options
We carefully incorporate various color pigments to achieve the intended effects on your finished products. You can select from our extensive list of color options.
Consistent Quality
GreatLight is proudly ISO certified, ensuring our products and services comply with international quality standards. We offer manufacturing analysis and quality control to provide parts that meet the highest standards.
Complex Geometries Support
We use high-quality elastomeric materials to ensure the manufacture of vacuum casting plastic parts with complex structures. Offer detailed design support to ensure your prototypes and small-batch components are closely similar to the intended final products.
Material and Finishing Selection
Choose from a wide range of possible materials and surface finishes for your vacuum cast parts. We provide the highest quality resins to ensure superior product quality, and offer a wide range of surface finishing options to bring your product to life.
Professional Vacuum Casting Specialists
Get reliable custom vacuum casting services from highly skilled and experienced specialists. We boast the best hands in the industry with expertise in fabrication, material selection, surface finishing, and many more.
Products
GreatLight Vacuum Casting Service FAQ
Our vacuum casting service is noted for its exceptional quality and speed. Our skilled technicians combine decades of experience with the latest technologies to produce exceptional prototypes and engineering models quickly. We can also further enhance your parts with a suite of finishing services including machining, media blasting, printing, painting and more.
Yes. To supplement our vacuum casting services, we offer an expanded service geared for design-for-manufacturing support. While we once reserved this service only for approved orders, we now provide it to all incoming RFQs. We also offer light assembly services to meet your needs.
To ensure the highest standard of quality for all of your finished parts, our team adheres to a strict quality control process. This starts with the verification and testing of all materials. During production, we meticulously control temperature, humidity and other processing conditions to maintain the highest degree of consistency in your parts.
We make it easy to get a fast quotation. Simply upload your CAD files and product details and we’ll send you a free quotation within 24 hrs. or less.
There are some limitations to the vacuum casting process. Developers need to use good design practices to ensure enough draft so the part can be released. For the same reason, avoid undercuts, deep ribs, bosses and other features that will destroy the relatively soft silicone mold when it opens.
When our technicians cut the mold open to remove the master pattern, they make a sawtooth pattern on the cutline that acts like a key. This helps the mold to be resealed in the correct orientation for pouring resin. The mold merely needs to be taped and stapled shut to avoid any leakage during the pour.
