Wooden patterns, resin patterns, metal patterns and molds in China

Wooden patterns are also named wooden molds, wooden moulds, which are made in pattern workshops, the materials are wood. The wooden patterns should be made by skilled workers, and will be used for sand casting process.  

The metal foundries usually use wooden patterns to make samples. Because of its cheap cost, easy modification and quick delivery. According to the different complex, one set of wooden patterns will use about 3 to 10 days to complete. The wooden pattern has a very short lifetime. They usually can make only hundreds of castings. However, you have to store them very carefully. Even so, they will have some kind of deformation after a period time. Therefore, they can not be used for batch production. In addition, their strength is limited, so they can not make some castings with very thin wall thickness and some special structures. The metal foundries usually make the resin patterns or metal patterns according to the approved wooden patterns. 

The full name of resin patterns are resin epoxy fiber glass reinforced patterns, glass fiber reinforced plastic patterns, Fiber Reinforced Plastics (FRP) Patterns, which is green, and made by resin and glass fiber. The resin keeps good surface quality, and glass fiber will reinforce the inside strength. Therefore, resin patterns can form complex structure, low cost, good strength, easy modification, good resistance to deformation. So, resin patterns can make thousands of castings. Resin patterns have been widely used in the metal foundries in China, and there are many professional resin pattern workshops who are serving for the metal foundries. 

The metal patterns are usually made by iron and aluminum. And machined by normal machined, digital milling machines or CNC centers. The advantages for the metal patterns are good surface quality, very long lifetimes, good strength and many others. The disadvantages are long delivery time, high cost, and can not make very large castings. The iron patterns are usually used on the automatic molding line, and aluminum patterns have lower cost, and widely used for auto molding lines and machine molding, manual molding process.

According to the opinion of Galen Wang from Dandong Foundry, the clients should choose the patterns according to your annual demand and quality requirements.

For more articles, please check Dandong Foundry Blog.

wooden pattern (wood)

metal pattern (iron)

resin pattern (epoxy resin)

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