CAD to Cast: How Patternless 3D Sand Printing is Eliminating Tooling Lead Times for One-Off Iron Castings
For procurement managers and design engineers, the "one-off" casting is often a logistical nightmare. Traditional foundries are built for high-volume production, meaning a request for 2–3 critical parts is frequently met with long lead times, high tooling costs, or an outright "no".
At One Off Castings, we have engineered a different path. By utilizing patternless casting and in-house 3D sand printing, we deliver complex, industrial-grade iron castings direct from your CAD file—without the need for traditional wooden or metal patterns.
The Patternless Advantage: Speed Without Compromise
Traditional casting requires physical tooling that can take weeks to manufacture and thousands of dollars to store. Our workflow bypasses this entirely:
Voxeljet 2000 3D Sand Printing: We use the Voxeljet 2000 to print sand molds and complex cores directly from digital files. This is ideal for one-offs, rapid design iterations, and parts with intricate internal geometries that are impossible to mold traditionally.
Robotic Patternless Molds: Supported by four Robo-Molders, our facility is built for rapid changeovers. We can move from one unique project to the next with zero downtime for tooling setup.
Ceramic Sand (No Silica): Every casting is poured using 100% ceramic sand (Carbo). This provides a superior surface finish and higher dimensional stability while eliminating the EHS risks associated with silica dust.
Engineering Density: 17+ Experts for Every Project
A one-off casting is rarely "simple." It usually involves a legacy part replacement or a high-stakes prototype for a new machine. Unlike typical job shops, our team includes 17 degreed engineers out of a staff of approximately 60.
These experts provide deep Design for Manufacturability (DFM) and solidification modeling to ensure your part is successful on the first pour, reducing the risk of porosity or dimensional failure.
Why One Off Castings?
Sweet Spot: We are intentionally built for runs of 1–50 pieces.
Legacy: All projects are produced at our 50-year-old Southern Cast Products foundry in Jonesboro, AR.
Material Range: We specialize in ductile and gray iron, as well as select steel and aluminum alloys.
One-Off Casting FAQ for Engineers
How quickly can you deliver a prototype from a CAD file? By using patternless 3D sand printing, we can often deliver a finished casting in a fraction of the time required for traditional tooling-based processes.
What is the maximum size for a patternless casting? Our Voxeljet 2000 and robotic molding lines allow us to handle patternless work at an "unusual scale" compared to other prototype shops. [Note: Specific dimensions should be added based on current mold envelope specs].
Can you match the tolerances of a production-run part? Yes. Because we use the same alloys and ceramic sand processes for our one-offs as we do for our low-volume production, your prototype will be a true functional representation of the final product.
Ready to bypass the tooling bottleneck? Upload Your CAD File for a Rapid One-Off Quote