Advantages of Urethane Casting – Part 2: Cost
Urethane casting has several advantages over other plastic manufacturing processes like injection molding and additive manufacturing (3D printing). It is fast, inexpensive, and produces high-quality parts.
Last week we discussed one advantage of urethane casting, speed. This week we’ll take a look at the second advantage: cost.
The liquid poured and cured silicone molds used for casting urethane are much cheaper to produce compared to creating injection mold “hard” tooling.
To put it in perspective, a casting project might be hundreds of dollars, compared to the thousands of dollars it would be for a comparable injection molding project.
The best method of producing parts – urethane casting, CNC machining or injection molding – will be determined by part quantity. For prototypes and low-volume (1-25) parts, urethane casting provides a very good value because the cost is very low, yet the quality of the parts is very high. (Hint: next week we’ll talk about quality).
For more information, visit the urethane casting section of our website.
