Resin Casting: Going from CAD to Engineering-Grade Plastic Parts

CNC & Machining
Resin Casting: Going from CAD to Engineering-Grade Plastic Parts

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Synthetic polymers play a role in almost every single commercially manufactured item on the planet. Plastics are not just ubiquitous, but extremely versatile: some of them are incredibly stretchy, while some are hard as nails; some are crystal clear, and others come in all colors of the rainbow; some can survive extreme temperatures, and yet others can stop a bullet mid-flight.

When you think about all this, it’s hard to believe that even for hobbyists well-accustomed to 3D manufacturing, engineering-grade plastics are still taboo. Sure, we may own 3D printers, but the output from affordable PLA and ABS extruders doesn’t even come close to the strength or variety of cheap injection-molded parts. The owners of CNC mills also have no reason to be smug: most of them shy away from plastics altogether, or resort to inexpensive but poorly-performing materials such as acrylic or HDPE.

Oddly enough, there is no reason why things need to be that way. There is a pretty safe, low-cost, and hassle-free technique that lets you make incredibly tough and precise parts in your workshop, in a matter of hours. The only problem is that almost all the available tutorials about this process – known as resin casting – are written by artists, with other artists in mind. Applying their approaches in engineering projects is usually not a good plan.

Fabricating patterns for single-part molds

If you follow the usual advice for replicating hand-made parts, you will be instructed to coat or submerge the original item in a flexible material, such as alginate or silicone rubber. Once this is done – and the shell is fully cured – you will be asked to cut this rubbery blob open and retrieve the original model. At that point, you will also fill the hollow void with another thermosetting compound that takes the shape of the initial part – and clamp the entire thing shut.

This process works, but has a number of drawbacks, especially if you want to get predictable results – and want to get them fast. For example, it can be taxing to build an appropriate box for a mold and then properly attach and orient the original model inside of it. It can be just as tricky to remove the original part without ruining the model, the shell, or both. Heck, even putting the mold back together without compromising the dimensional accuracy of the resulting part is quite a challenge on its own.

Luckily, all these problems can be avoided when dealing with computer-designed parts: all you need to do is to attach the desired geometry to a CAD-sketched mold cavity, forming a positive mold known as a pattern – and then manufacture them together in a single step. We will talk about more complex examples later on, but for now, let’s take a part with a flat bottom and limited undercuts. In such a scenario, the pattern can be as trivial as this:

Casting a Gear
Designing a simple pattern for a single-part rubber mold.

Adding a box around the part has a fairly modest impact on 3D printing, but makes a huge, positive difference for CNC milling work. That’s because you can quickly machine a pattern on top of an oversized piece of stock material, leaving most of it intact for future use. This saves you money, time, and eliminates the worry about fixturing the part so that it doesn’t fly away from underneath the tool.

Machining a Mold
CNC mill finishing a complex mold for a planetary gearbox on top of a random block of stock material. Machining these gears directly would be a lot more challenging and wasteful.

Patterns can be made out of any material that processes easily and produces predictable results. With 3D extruders, this usually means PLA. For CNC mills, machinable wax and HDPE should work acceptably well, although I always recommend a more predictable and cheaper alternative: medium-density prototyping boards. My favorite variety is RenShape 460 — a lightweight and fairly durable substance that machines like butter, but delivers amazingly fine detail:

Male Mold
Close-up of a CNC-machined pattern in RenShape 460. This material costs a few cents per cubic inch and is actually less expensive than machinable wax.

Producing negative molds

With a pattern cavity ready to go, we need to find a suitable material that will form a flexible, negative mold. In artistic applications, such molds are commonly made out of latex, alginate, polysulfide rubbers, or tin-cure silicones. All these options have significant downsides — ranging from poor strength to marked toxicity — and contribute to the perception that moldmaking is a messy affair.

In precision work, the only worthwhile choice is two-component, platinum-cure silicones. These materials are non-toxic and odor-free; on top of this, their mode of polymerization ensures incredibly high dimensional accuracy. The resulting rubber is remarkably tough, exhibits excellent rebound characteristics, is resistant to chemicals, and comes with an inherently non-stick surface that easily detaches from the pattern and from the final parts. In short, platinum silicones are one of the coolest polymers you get to play with at home.

Pouring in the Resin
Pouring silicone into a machined pattern.

Over the years, I have tried about a dozen different moldmaking rubbers, many of them from popular, hobbyist-oriented manufacturers – and to put it kindly, it is very easy to end up with a variety that is far too viscous, far too fragile, or far too soft for small parts. I have put together a detailed guide for selecting just the right formulation; if you don’t have time for that, I think that two products really leave the competition in the dust: the easily pourable, low-viscosity Quantum Silicones QM 262 and the nearly indestructible, translucent Silicones Inc XP-592. Both of these products cost around $15 per pound, and usually come in 10-12lbs kits.

With the moldmaking composition selected, the whole casting process is almost embarrassingly simple: the resin is mixed for several minutes, poured into the mold, and covered with a flat sheet of plastic for a couple of hours. That’s really about it.

Sample Mold
Cured silicone mold. Note the flawless pick-up of sub-millimeter detail, including tiny protrusions and thin walls.

Well, to be fair, there is one more step worth taking in between: to ensure excellent reproduction of intricate detail without biting your nails, it’s wise to get a vacuum degassing rig. The term may be scary, but the device isn’t: a small and relatively quiet vacuum pump costs around $100, and a shatterproof polycarbonate vacuum jar sells for less than $60. Two or three minutes under vacuum ensure that there is no air trapped in between the mold and the still-liquid resin – and you are done.

bubbling resin
Vacuum degassing helps avoid air entrapment in a fast, easy, and reliable way.

You can also use several other hacks, such as applying the rubber with a brush or a syringe – but frankly, except for very simple geometries, it’s just not worth your time.

Casting final parts

As soon as the negative mold is ready to go, you can start making final parts. The workflow is very similar to the steps discussed above: a two-component resin (optionally pigmented with commonly available, super-low-cost dyes) is thoroughly mixed, poured into the flexible mold, briefly degassed under vacuum, and finally covered with a flat sheet of non-stick plastic – polypropylene or HDPE will do. That’s it: the polymerization reaction kicks in, and in a couple of hours, the finished parts can be removed from the mold.

weighing down the casting
Final parts on their way; today’s color is blue. Molds are covered with a sheet of polypropylene and weighed down to ensure flatness and avoid flash. Since the mold is made from a fairly rigid rubber, it maintains excellent dimensional accuracy even under heavy load.

The casting process itself is simple, but selecting the right plastic can be a challenge: many of the popular resins sold under hobby brands are smelly, harmful, exhibit significant shrinkage, cure too quickly or too slowly, or simply produce flimsy parts. It may not matter if you are making a decorative paperweight – but for a functional mechanical assembly, it probably will. To avoid unpleasant surprises, you should stay clear of epoxies and polyesters; polyurethanes are a much better choice. This family of remarkably versatile polymers can faithfully approximate almost every other type of plastic or rubber – and offers excellent resistance and dimensional accuracy, too.

Alas, most of the polyurethane compositions marketed to artists and other DIYers are almost guaranteed to disappoint in one way or another. To avoid common pitfalls, you can have another look at this in-depth guide; but in short, I strongly recommend sticking to Innovative Polymers, a little-known manufacturer from Michigan. They do not seem to target hobbyist audiences, but they carry a remarkable range of top-notch, workshop-safe plastics for demanding applications (and for taxidermy – your guess is as good as mine!). In particular, their IE-3075 resin has no match: it is exceptionally strong and rigid, outperforming injection-molded Nylon or ABS in almost every way. Just as importantly, it’s very easy to work with and dirt cheap, selling for less than $8 per pound.

sample parts
Micro-scale parts made out of Innovative Polymers IE-3075 (dyed orange) and OC-7086 (water clear). The accuracy – CAD model to finished part – is better than 5 µm.

Innovative Polymers also carries a selection of comparably tough, UV-resistant crystal-clear resins (e.g., TD 283-18), a range of indestructible, stretchy rubbers with superb abrasion and cut resistance (HP-21xx series), and a lot more. Really, if you are in North America and want to get going with resin casting, it’s a crime not to give them a try.

A word of caution is in order: although the resins mentioned in this article are safer than most of the formulations employed in artistic work, they are still based on fairly reactive chemicals, and need to be treated with respect. Before starting any casting projects, familiarize yourself with product safety datasheets and review common-sense workshop safety tips.

But what about more complex parts?

Good question! We glanced over this topic earlier on, but it’s time to catch up. For geometries that can’t be easily cast in single-part molds – for example, because they do not have a flat bottom, or because they have pronounced undercuts – you need to build a mold that consists of two or more interlocking bits. The idea may sound intimidating, and involves a bit 3D problem-solving – but in most cases, the task isn’t as hard as it seems. One of the many possible approaches is shown below:

complex part
Creating patterns for a two-part negative mold. A very thin sprue is also added near the parting line to allow the resin to be poured in with a syringe.

In fact, multi-part molds may simplify your life. Directly manufacturing the part shown above would be difficult, because low-cost 3D printers tend to struggle with overhangs, while entry-level three-axis CNC mills can’t cope with undercuts (unless you manually rotate the workpiece in the middle of a cutting job). The split-pattern approach makes this problem go away: all the individual molds have simple shapes, and are combined to cast a monolithic part with a more tricky geometry later on.

Final words

Resin casting is not a silver bullet – but it offers compelling benefits even for one-off parts, and is not getting the recognition it deserves in the DIY 3D community. Once you get a hang of the process, the overhead involved can be surprisingly low – and in many cases, the approach may actually simplify your projects, working around the inherent limitations of 3D Printers and CNC Mills.

In exchange for taking the slightly longer route, resin casting gives you the ability to quickly crank out parts with almost any mechanical properties, from true rubbers to exotic composites. In fact, even if you limit yourself to a single type of a polyurethane resin, you still get a surprising degree of flexibility: fillers such as milled glass fibers or glass microspheres can be used to make rock-hard composites or ultralight syntactic foams by just throwing a spoonful of commodity powder into the mix.

Best of all, once you have a negative mold or two, you can replicate your parts in large quantities, at almost no cost, and much faster than you could ever print or machine them. To change their appearance, you just need a drop of dye and a good stir. No other approach even comes close to that.

YouTube player
A microminiature planetary gearbox made using the processes and products discussed in this article – and not much else.

This post was originally published on May 2, 2013 and WordPress comments are now closed.

51 thoughts on “Resin Casting: Going from CAD to Engineering-Grade Plastic Parts

  1. Jesse Ross says:

    Great guide! Would love to see a series of similar guides just on the fillers you mention in your final words, and the varieties of results you can get with them. Well Done.

    1. Michal Zalewski says:

      Check out http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/gcnc/ch4/ – it has all that and a lot more, provided that you have 1-2 hours to waste :-)

  2. Stanley says:

    Are there any guides on micro-milling, like what’s shown here? Certainly a big part of making these tiny parts is being able to mill them out first. That end mill is barely visible!

      1. Michal Zalewski says:

        Err, sorry – http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/gcnc/ (ch4 is about resin casting, but chapters 2, 3, and others deal with the CNC work).

  3. Marcus says:

    Great article, Michael! Bookmarked for reference.

    How well would this work for large parts…say 12″ in diameter?

    1. Michal Zalewski says:

      12″ isn’t very large, so the same process will work unless you have some other constraints. But past certain dimensions, you bump into two constraints: you don’t want to use too much silicone (since it’s expensive and the resulting mold may be very heavy); and if the geometry is bulky, you may not want to make solid plastic parts, instead preferring a hollow plastic shell of a particular thickness (similar to how some other oversize parts are molded).

      The first part is fixed with glove molding, which essentially comes down to brushing on several layers of thixotropic silicone and then adding a hard shell out of brushed-on thixotropic plastic. It’s a more involved process – you’re trading material costs for labor ;-)

      The later goal requires something called rotocasting: pour some resin into a mold, plug it shut, then gently spin the whole thing in a uniform way, until the resin is no longer free-flowing. The amount of resin used controls the thickness of the resulting shell.

      Not all resins work particularly well with rotocasting, but many do. For a single part, this may be doable manually; for continuous production, you need to build some sort of a rig.

      1. Marcus says:

        So good. Thanks for the detailed answer.

  4. Steffen says:

    Awesome article! Well written and a nice introduction. You made it very inviting and unscary to try this out :) I only wonder how easy it would be to get hold of all this stuff in Norway, without getting broke! :p
    Thanks Michael!
    Best regards, Steffen.

    1. Michal Zalewski says:

      I actually made my baby steps with this process while living in Poland :-) It costs more, but shouldn’t be too bad. Good European alternatives are several different silicones from ACC Silicones or Rhodia, Huntsman BM5460 or Necuron 651 prototyping boards, and a Huntsman RenCast 5146 casting resin.

      1. Steffen says:

        Thanks for the tip, I will check it out :)

      2. Natalie F says:

        Michal, Great article! I also just wanted to thank you for recommending our products here at Quantum Silicones. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do for you! Feel free to interact with us via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn!

  5. Ed says:

    Why the initial step of creating a positive mold from RenShape? Why not mill the negative mold directly?

    1. Michal Zalewski says:

      It’s fairly challenging to mill (or 3D print) silicone rubber. And having a silicone mold offers several important benefits; most notably, it’s non-stick and flexible. Casting parts in rigid molds has a fair number of downsides.

  6. Toby says:

    Have you considering getting a kit together for sale? It would be great to have a single package that included the prototype board, silicones, and resins required, enough for a small project. Maybe everything except for the vacuum pump.

    With your knowledge of the process, have you considering doing this? Maybe a Kickstarter campaign? Being in Canada, it’s even harder to get this stuff, often due to shipping costs or restrictions on importing.

    1. Michal Zalewski says:

      Interesting suggestion, thanks. Between my daytime job and random hobbies, I doubt I’d have enough time to run a mail order business – but there are probably opportunities for others to give it a go. I’d be certainly happy to help. FWIW, getting suitable products in Canada shouldn’t be too hard, most of the manufacturers have local reps.

      1. Toby says:

        I think my main concern is volume. for example, I don’t really want to buy a 5 gallon kit of the silicone to try out. I’ve contacted a few of the companies you mentioned to see if they sell small quantities.

        As for a kit, maybe not you, but you did post this on Make, and Make has a store….

        1. jamesbx says:

          Smooth-on sells trial sizes of different types of silicone. I’ve used them, and asked questions, and they are really good to deal with.

          1. Michal Zalewski says:

            Unfortunately, Smooth-On is one of the manufacturers I don’t really recommend (IIRC, they still use mercury catalysts, and many of their rubbers and plastics perform relatively poorly). But you shouldn’t have difficulty buying silicones and polyurethanes in small quantities (check out http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/gcnc/ch4/ for tips on how to avoid duds).

            The only thing that is typically sold in large amounts are modelling boards. But you don’t really need to try them out – there are maybe three types useful in normal CNC work – and even if you do, you can usually get a sample kit (e.g., from Freeman, which seems to have a location in Canada).

  7. Free says:

    Thanks for the in-depth and instructive article! You saved everybody a bunch of work. My 3D printer company has a process that’s nearly identical which we happened to have developed in parallel. For a brief introduction of how we’re doing this entirely with 3D printers please check out http://blog.terawattindustries.com/2013/05/03/rapid-prototyping-parts-with-3d-printers/

  8. Andsetinn says:

    I remember an old russian blog that taught how to cast small plastic replacement gears using only the stripped gear, clay and 2 part epoxy. Sadly that blog seems to be lost now.
    If you google “Ride RP600 Air Remover” you get really nice, although small, inexpensive vacuum chamber. It is used by radio control car enthusiastics to remove air from shocks.

  9. ConfoundedMachine says:

    Awesome guide!

    I do quite a bit of CNC machining and casting and this is an excellent article. Went to your “Guerilla CNC link” and printed off the whole works, something Im going to keep in my workshop.

    Many thanks.

  10. Jamie says:

    Is that a professional CNC router or a home set up in the 1st picture?
    This could be a great way to make intricate scale model parts too.

    1. Jamie says:

      Oops, sorry I mean’t in the 3rd picture showing the gears being milled.

    2. Michal Zalewski says:

      It’s a hobby setup, but this particular mill is fairly expensive (see http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/rstory/). Nevertheless, you can get comparable results in RenShape with machines that sell for $2k or so.

  11. James says:

    The problem is ordering products from Innovative Polymers. I have contacted them more than once now via e-mail asking about pricing on their products or if there are any distributors, I never received any replies. It is frustrating. Any recommended alternatives? More specifically either distributors or companies who offer direct purchase through the internet of either Innovative Polymer product or alternatives. My opinion is Innovative Polymers should really set up an online store for there products, it is 2013, and it would likely be good for business.

    1. Michal Zalewski says:

      Weird, they’re usually very responsive, I was just talking to a guy who placed an order about a week ago. Can you ping me at lcamtuf@gmail.com? I may be able to help to some extent..

      1. James says:

        I will try contacting them using the actual e-mail address rather than their online contact form and see if I can get a response that route.

  12. James says:

    Another question regarding Innovative Polymers, what is the color of IE-3075, the datasheet states, ‘Translucent’ so is it sort of like the color of a milky white LED once cured without any additives? Or is there a yellowish / amber tinge to it?

    1. Michal Zalewski says:

      It’s milky white, very much like a diffuse white LED or polypropylene (http://www.krackeler.com/graphics/0008/jpg/367470000.jpg). No yellowish tint. Here it is dyed blue:

      http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/robot/show_image.cgi/scanner6.jpg

    2. Michal Zalewski says:

      It’s milky white, very much like a diffuse white LED or polypropylene (http://www.krackeler.com/graphics/0008/jpg/367470000.jpg). No yellowish tint. Here it is dyed blue: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/robot/show_image.cgi/scanner6.jpg

  13. Jon Hollander says:

    I stumbled across Michal’s work a few months ago and set up my own resin casting workshop. It’s not much more difficult than typical 3D printing workflows. I’ve written about my experiences at: http://jonhollander.me/?p=120

    Here’s a picture of undyed IE-3075: http://jonhollander.me/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2013-03-10-19.13.20-e1368328373716.jpg

    Innovative Polymers never responded to my e-mails either, but I called them and they were very helpful. They even sent me free samples of a few materials for testing.

  14. James says:

    Which type of resin was used in the very first photo and what type of pigments?

    1. Michal Zalewski says:

      It’s in the article and in the linked guide (http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/gcnc/), but the resin is probably IE-3075 from Innovative Polymers, plus powdered pigments from Kremer Pigments (day-glo pink + spinel black).

  15. 0xfred says:

    An excellent guide. I had a recent project to CNC mill some records for an old Fisher Price clockwork record player.
    http://www.instructables.com/id/Custom-records-for-a-70s-toy-record-player/

    I’ve had requests to produce some of these and they’re just too slow do mill individually on my small mill. I’ve been wondering about the practicalities of casting and this sounds perfect.

  16. johndow says:

    WTF! So far the best article i had on 3D printing, making a mold, which plastic to use… This will even open me to metal part moldering !!!
    in other Words and in French !
    LA solution pour créer ses propres pièces… Tout est là, testé par MICHAEL ZALEWSKI , le meilleur article que j’aie jamais trouvé sur : 1 imprimer en 3D 2: les différentes sortes de plastiques utilisables 3: les composants de moules qui marchent vraiment … Ce qui va nous ouvrir la voie même pour mouler des métaux…. Extra!

  17. jason f says:

    Hi Michal,

    I was wondering where you were finding that Renshape 460 material for such affordable prices? I was looking into buying a sheet from the linked supplier and was quoted almost a thousand dollars for the smallest sheet.

    Thanks!

  18. Art says:

    Very Cool. Looking forward to the day that this could be scaled up to make things as large as buick and cadillac bumper fillers. No chance of that soon I suppose; maybe one day big enough at least for chevrolet bumper fillers, but I dunno.

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  21. vijayengineerinc says:

    wow thanks for sharing this, keep posting on casting process. and any tips for steel casting process.

    http://www.vei.co.in/investment-casting-companies-in-india.php

    Thank You…

  22. Caesar9 says:

    From whom did you purchase your QM262 and IE3075? I looked around but only found bulk buying options

    1. Natalie F says:

      @caesar9:disqus
      You can order the QM 262 directly from Quantum Silicones or contact them for a distributor closest to you. QM 262 is sold in quart kits, gallon kits, 5 gallon kits and 55 gallon drum kits. Call 800-852-3147 or email info@quantumsilicones.com.

  23. Projektowanie CAD says:

    Wow. Great idea and nice final effect :)

  24. Brus Olrajti says:

    A bit late comer but I just saw your article… I have a question on 2-part molds: do you still use degassing if your model is completely locked within the mold?

  25. Beth Jackson says:

    Great article and really helpful tips! For supplies, I suggest you check out Dalchem http://dalchem.com.au/product/casting-materials-and-supplies/polyester-casting-resinfibreglass-supplies.html. I’ve
    used many resins but this is by far the best Polyester resin out
    there.

  26. Joe Humpamonkey says:

    Glass bead (‘microshperes’), polyester fibers, glass cloth, hell, pebbles, straw, aluminum chips swept off the floor, will not only add incredible strength to your cast parts (think ‘concrete + aggregate) but can cut your resin bill in half, since almost all manufacturers recommend 50% by volume or more filler.

    Back before SDoCal decided it was better to kill the goose that laid the golden egg (mainly aerospace, but pretty much all other manufacturing , too) rather than spend 12 years instead of 10 cleaning the air back in the early ’90’s paper phenolic was the choice for tooling (needs carbide cutters, but they last forever) (added benefit of drilling dowel pin/ bushing/ locators etc holes with hss left a perfect press fit), pure silicone rubber back-cast, but instead of swtraight casting parts, generally it was cleaners faster and easier to just brush on an epoxys surface coat, then fill with 50/50 Fast-cast & filler. Pot life was about 5 minutes, but full cure about 10 seconds later, no vacuum required (viscosity is too high to trap air anyway.) End up with a super hard high-gloss polished finish.010-.020 thick, on top of a solid rock.

  27. Artshound says:

    Anybody have any suggestions for a low viscosity epoxy urethane that would be suitable for harmonica parts? I need something that can be put in the mouth and breathed through.

  28. Frank's Desig'Nature says:

    i have a question about gears making, how do i keep the gear to change size but keep the ratio the same? or should i say, how do i add or remove teeth but keep the pitch the same? i might have one small gear like 5inch in diameter and a 20in gear with more teeth, what is that parameter i want to address to make sure both of these gear can interact with eachother? im using inkScape

  29. Frank's Desig'Nature says:

    i have a question about gears making, how do i keep the gear to change size but keep the ratio the same? or should i say, how do i add or remove teeth but keep the pitch the same? i might have one small gear like 5inch in diameter and a 20in gear with more teeth, what is that parameter i want to address to make sure both of these gear can interact with eachother? im using inkScape

    this picture below is something i like to replicate

  30. Amanda Satchwell says:

    This is the type of content that keeps me a paying subscriber to Make

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Security engineer by day, a maker of tiny plastic gears by night.

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