Norck: Rapid Prototyping & Production Solutions with Urethane Casting

Norck delivers expert urethane casting services, empowering engineers, designers, and manufacturers across diverse industries to produce high-quality parts that accurately mimic injection-molded components.

Capabilities for Urethane Casting Success:

• Master Pattern Creation: Designing and producing master patterns using CNC machining, 3D printing, or manual methods for high-fidelity replication.
• Silicone Mold Making: Crafting durable silicone molds optimized for urethane casting, capturing intricate details and textures from the master pattern.
• Diverse Urethane Resins: Casting with rigid and flexible urethanes in a spectrum of colors, hardnesses, and properties tailored to your functional and aesthetic needs.
• Finishing & Post-Processing: Polishing, painting, adding inserts, and assembly services to achieve your desired level of realism and functionality.
• Scalable to Your Project: From rapid prototyping of a few pieces to bridge production of small to medium batches.

Norck's Engineering Edge: It's About More Than Just Prototypes

• Design for Manufacturability (DFM): Consulting on part adjustments to ensure easy mold release, draft angles, and optimize them for urethane casting.
• Material Selection for Realism: Matching the right urethane to simulate your intended production plastic's mechanical properties, texture, and appearance.
• Process Optimization: Tailoring casting parameters, vacuum degassing, and curing cycles for bubble-free parts with optimal mechanical properties.
• Focus on Diverse Applications: Prototyping, marketing models, functional testing, short-run production, and more, across various industries.

Why Choose Norck for Urethane Casting?

• Rapid, Realistic Prototypes: Quickly iterate on designs with parts that closely mimic the look, feel, and performance of injection-molded components.
• Simulate a Range of Plastics: Test different materials' properties in functional prototypes without the tooling cost of injection molding.
• Bridge to Production: Seamlessly scale to small-batch manufacturing, meeting market needs before investing in expensive injection molds.
• Cost-Effective for Small Volumes: Ideal when quantities don't justify injection molding or you need custom parts that injection molding cannot create.
• Your Casting Partner: We guide you through material selection, design optimization, and the casting process for optimal results.

It is a plastic molding process used to duplicate a master component. A silicone mold is formed around the element, then split into two halves and injected with urethane. Urethane Casting is used for low-volume production due to the soft material used in the process.

Urethane Casting offers many advantages:

• Cost of tooling: The tooling used in urethane casting is cheap.

• Accurate: Urethane casting can create detailed feature.

• Rapid prototyping: Can be used in rapid prototyping due to the simplicity of the process.

• FDA approved: Can produce parts for food and medical industries.

But there are some disadvantages as well:

    -  Post-processing is required: Post-molding operations are necessary as the molded parts come off the mold with burrs and excess material.

    -  Limited lifespan: The silicone mold may be soft and can’t withstand many shots.

Urethane Casting is made through four steps:

1. Producing the master component: The desired part is made via rapid prototyping or manually.

2. Creating the mold: Placing the master component into a box and then emerging it into liquid silicone.

3. Splitting the mold: After the silicone is solidified, it is removed from the box and split into two halves along the parting line.

4. Removing the master component: The master component is removed after slicing the mold.

5. Casting: The two halves are reassembled and filled with liquid urethane.

6. Put under pressure: After casting, the mold that contains the urethane is put into a high temperature and pressure chamber to solidify the urethane.

7. Extraction: The solid part is extracted from the mold, and excess material is removed.

Obtaining a fully functional part might require extra processing for features that can’t be made with the Urethane Casting process, such as taping. The designed part should follow Urethane Casting design guidelines.

Norck is a technology-powered manufacturing leader specializing in CNC machining, 3D printing, sheet metal fabrication, and injection molding. Our intelligent, data-driven approach ensures exceptional quality, optimized costs, and seamless supply chain management for companies worldwide.

Key Services:

• Precision CNC Machining: High-quality custom parts and components.
• Advanced 3D Printing: Rapid prototyping and complex production parts.
• Sheet Metal Fabrication: Custom fabrication solutions across materials.
• Injection Molding: Scalable production for plastic parts.

Why Choose Norck?

• AI-Powered Manufacturing: Data and AI optimize our processes for superior quality, minimized costs, and supply chain visibility
• Vast Production Capacity: Our extensive partner network in Europe and the US guarantees both low and high-volume production.
• End-to-End Expertise: Our team of engineers, data scientists, and product developers ensure design for manufacturability and unparalleled service
• Single-Source Solution: Norck streamlines your supply chain, reduces overhead, enhances purchasing power, and delivers just-in-time results.

Experience the Norck difference. Get a quote fast for your manufacturing needs today!