Benefits of 3D Sand Printing
Our state-of-the-art 3D Sand Printing technology allows our customers to develop complex geometry that often avoids the tooling process, thus reducing costs and lead times. At Hoosier Pattern, we are the industry leader in additive manufacturing and we’re constantly setting the bar high to exceed our customers’ expectations. With five in-house 3D Sand Printers along with our highly experienced team members, Hoosier Pattern continues to deliver the industry’s best molds and cores each day and every day.
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True Design Freedom
We are confident that you will want to experience firsthand what our 3D sand printer can do for you. We encourage you to contact us to see what our team can do for your next project.
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From Design to Reality Without the Middleman
Design and print geometrically complex products, bypassing tooling fabrication to create the core or mold, typical of conventional casting methods.
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Drastically Reduce Lead Times
With dramatically increased design freedom and the ability to scale production volumes easily, delivery can happen in days — not weeks or months.
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One of the World's Largest Printing Job Boxes
Our 3D sand printer's job box has a build envelope of 70.86 x 39.37 x 27.56 inches. This lets us effortlessly scale your project up.
Print Sand Casting Molds & Cores Directly from CAD
Hoosier Pattern’s 3D sand printers selectively dispense resin onto thin layers of specially engineered sand. This process produces accurate, uniform cores and molds, that significantly reduces lead time. If you can design it, we can build it.
Our Team Can Help Bring Your Designs to Life
Do you have a project but don’t have the resources to model it? Hoosier Pattern has an experienced CAD team passionate about precise, efficient design. The team at Hoosier Pattern has the experience of working with foundries for decades. We apply our knowledge to projects that run on small squeezer lines to assembled molds the size of a compact car. We have even printed mold sections that are used in a mold the size of a full-size van.
Determining Costs
When determining the cost for a printed sand core/mold, take the L x W x H of the bounding box of the piece to be printed and multiply this by $0.13 (for most products) Most lead times are ten business days but can be expedited for an additional fee.
If we do not have to clean the core and can print the part in a printed box, and you can extract the part, the cost is $0.11/cubic inch with a normal lead time of 1 week. HPI does have a minimum printing charge of $450, and packaging material and shipping are an additional charge.
Please remember this calculation formula is for estimate purposes. If you have a project in mind or need a final cost analysis, please contact Dave Rittmeyer, our Customer Care & Additive Manufacturing Manager, to help answer any questions you might have on your next project.
Breaking the Mold
Are you interested in understanding the benefits that 3D printed sand has versus traditional tooling? Then click here to view our in-depth infographic that clearly outlines our entire process from concept to completion. This graphic begins with our CAD process and how that mold or core design will fit appropriately into our job box. Next is the printing process, where the job box is loaded. The mixture of binder on the media creates multiple thin layers to eventually form the mold or core.
After the printing is complete, the job box rests for an hour to ensure the application is appropriately bonded together. When finished, the mold or core is extracted from the job box, and a vacuum removes the loose media. Next, the product goes to our cleaning room, where each piece is cleaned and audited with our two-part check system. Once the part passes our audit, the final product is packed and safely shipped off to its destination.
To read more about our quality checks process, please click here.
Incorporating Technology
Since our industry never stays static, incorporating the latest updates, technological equipment, and practices allows us to streamline our production process by providing our customers with the best molds and cores. Therefore our staff and management team are constantly testing innovations and approaches to further our future product development.
An example of our employees researching new ideas and technologies is at the CastExpo, where our employees observed recent discoveries, and each team reported their observations. To learn more about CastExpo — the Future of Metalcasting and how Hoosier Pattern members experienced this conference, please click here.
Below is a video explaining how our 3D Sand Printers can turn designs into realities.
About Our Company and Team
Hoosier Pattern has always been on the cutting edge of innovation for over two decades. We’re consistently raising the bar in our industry while maintaining the highest quality for our customers. In 2013, Hoosier Pattern was the first top service center to own and operate a 3D sand printer in the United States. Today, we have five 3D sand printers in-house and over 25 machining centers.
Hoosier Pattern started in 1997 in a 3,500-square-foot space with just a couple of machining centers. Currently, we operate a 90,000-square-foot facility with state-of-the-art technology, allowing us to take on jobs from various customers across multiple industries.
Our management and team members understand our customer’s demand for expedient delivery times, and product excellence is a must. This expectation is the driving force behind our day-to-day operations. We have always been committed to “On Time Delivery” to keep up with the strict timelines that our customers demands.
Please take a moment and check out our highly trained and talented team. Click here to view our Employee Spotlight, and you will see firsthand how each team member plays a part in delivering the highest quality products and services.
With our 3D sand printing process, customers can expect a 10-day turnaround time on many of our projects have the ability to ship products quickly if needed. Both our foundry tooling and 3D printed sand follow all of Hoosier Pattern’s rigorous quality-control systems throughout each stage to ensure the industry’s highest possible standards.
To learn more about Hoosier Pattern’s culture and how we exceed our client’s expectations, please click here to view our five-part video series.