Recommended Casting Houses That Work with Formlabs Castable Resin

#73

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Greetings to anyone that can help me out. I have a problem getting my model printed it needs to be pored in gold and silver and I’m just finding out resin is the way to go this model was rejected by shapeways for being too fragile. It’s a bird of paradise Uploading…

#74

I have had good results with Shapeways until I ran into your issue. Then I just got frustrated.

I think the difference is, if I print a part with features that are too small, I just end up with a failed print or a detail missing from the model. The worst thing that happens is I have to re-print or clean up the goo. They are providing a service and know they will have issues and don’t want to have to refund you if they printed that and you were not happy.

#75

I am currently looking at finding a casting house that will do reasonably priced sterling silver casting for jewelry in the US. I have found Superior Casting Services and Silver Cloud in Albuquerque, but ZPC was higher. They do beautiful casting in gold and higher-end metals, but at the price point I’m trying to meet, I think either Superior or Silver Cloud would be good, so I’ll be sending one of them a castable model tomorrow. Anyone have any other suggestions?

#76

Forgive me for being ignorant, I’m trying to read through this whole thread. But isn’t it more important what sort of investment material the casting company uses / burnout method? So that would highlight their ability.

For example, we (we’re not casters, we’re a dental lab - we found out that the visijet green was extremely volatile during burn out and would periodically bubble so violently that our investment would create microcracks which resulted in fins etc etc.

Swapping to a more durable investment helped with the fins but then the viscosity of the material made it difficult to inject our lithium disilicate glass (which has about the same viscosity as a Non-precious to semi-precious alloy).

We ultimately found out that if you thinly coat the surface in shoe polish, it somehow lowers the temp and creates a less volatile event during burnout.

Pending proper sprue locations etc etc.

The alternative of course is to just simply SLM the alloy you want - but i don’t think they’ve figured out the appropriate acid bath to get the surface finished as nicely.

#77

Absolutely, we have a recommended burnout schedule here and also recommend a specific investment. R&R Plasticast with BANDUST. I have heard that dental investments can work too but typically these are more expensive. You should ask your investment supplier for an investment that will work well with a photopolymer.

We screen casting houses before adding them to this list by ensuring they can work well with our resin specifically and produce good results. The burnout of photopolymers is very different to a wax burnout and it will often require a significant change to your casting process to achieve good results. The investment is also very critical, it needs to have a similar thermal expansion to the photopolymer and good strength at the point where the photopolymer is expanding most.

#78

do we have access to the CTE for all the Formlab resins (3rd party of course is up to them :wink:

and yes, thanks for the reply. I was really replying to the 1month old thread as we area new F2 owners and trying to chime in everywhere we can / glean knowledge as well :slight_smile:

#79

Welcome, @ProtechDental!

#81

I have horible troubles whith castable resin, it simple dosent melt, it burns and fracture the investment material, we make all the proces as you sugest and it didnt work, we feel realy dispointed whith this resin.

#82

@Jaeger, what types of things are you casting? Jewelry, dental? Can you post your burnout schedule? How long are you curing your models?

#83

Hello Jennifer,

Is it possible to get your list of casting companies that you at form labs work with? Thank you.

Best

Alexander

#84

Hi Alexander,

the list has shrunk as our partners needs and ability to handle individual orders shifts. Currently we’re only recommending Golden Century Casting in Florida. Where are you based? We are working to extend and add to this list this summer.

#85
#86

Hi everyone,

Does anyone knows any casting company in Portugal? Near Lisbon would be great… :slight_smile:

TIA

#87

Hey Laurence. My father and I do all of our own casting as well but we are new to using resin. We’ve casted a few things and it’s been hit or miss. We’ve have about two things come out nice and the other 4 or 5 things came out with lots of porosity. Any tips on burnout/ preperation?

#88

I actually switched to a Solidscape printer because of this very problem. One thing you can try, is use plasticast investment and let it cure for several hours before putting it in the oven. I noticed the longer you let the investment cure ( not too long) it gives it a little less breakout.

#89

To casting houses having problems casting this. I use Ultravest Max White by ransom&randolph It works perfectly!!! :slight_smile: hope this helps! :slight_smile: I cast fine gold and platinum and sometimes silver just for fun or art peices.

#90

Anyone knows a casting house in Turkey?

#91

My father and I have found castings come out really well after curing the blue castable resin for at least 2 hours and then putting a large spru to help vent/melt out all the resin during the burn out. We have been using the recommended R&R plasticast with bandust.

#92

@JenniferMilne Are there any casting houses in Canada?

#93

None right now - let me send a few emails and see if I can get any suggestions. We have successful customers casting in Canada, we just haven’t formalized any who are open to outside requests.