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Some clients were confused about the
mould costs, or pattern costs. We will briefly introduce the mould
pattern costs for cast iron sand castings, cast steel lost wax
investment castings, and metal patterns for die castings. For China
Foundries, the mould (pattern) cost is separated with the casting
prices. You must pay for the pattern cost in advance.
Function of Casting Patterns
No pattern, no castings. The patterns are the necessary tools for
casting production. Nobody can produce metal castings without any
patterns. You could call it as pattern cost, mould cost, tooling
cost, or initial cost.
Types of Casting Patterns
The patterns have different materials for different casting
processes. For example, the sand casting processes could use wooden
pattern, resin (plastic) pattern, aluminum pattern and iron pattern.
The lost wax investment casting process will use aluminum pattern or
iron patterns. The die casting process will use alloy steel
patterns.
Wooden pattern only can be used for
making some prototype or rough samples, can not be used for batch
production, because wooden patterns will get deformation after a
while.
Price Estimation of Casting Patterns
For the clients, it is too difficult to estimate the pattern cost,
since there are many factors could affect the pattern costs, and the
price ranges are very large, from hundreds dollars to tens of
thousands of dollars.
Herein, we just list the normal price range of different casting
processes and castings. Just for your reference.
Casting Process |
Very simple shape |
Normal complex shape |
Very complex shape |
Small size (USD) |
Large size (USD) |
Small size (USD) |
Large size (USD) |
Small size (USD) |
Large size
(USD) |
Manual green sand casting
(Resin Pattern) |
800 |
1200 |
1200 |
1600 |
- |
- |
Manual green sand casting
(Aluminum Pattern) |
1000 |
1500 |
1500 |
2500 |
3000 |
5000 |
Shell molding casting
(Iron Pattern) |
1000 |
1500 |
1500 |
2500 |
3000 |
5000 |
Automatic molding casting
(Iron Pattern) |
1500 |
2000 |
2000 |
3000 |
3500 |
5000 |
Resin sand casting process
(Resin Pattern) |
- |
1200 |
- |
1800 |
- |
- |
Resin sand casting process
(Aluminum Pattern) |
- |
2000 |
- |
3000 |
- |
5000 |
Lost wax investment casting
(Metal Pattern) |
1000 |
1800 |
1500 |
2500 |
2000 |
3000 |
Aluminum die casting
(Metal Pattern) |
5000 |
10000 |
8000 |
16000 |
13000 |
26000 |
Ownership of Patterns (Casting
Moulds)
Once clients paid for the patterns, then the client will own the
patterns. The Chinese foundries should not produce castings by these
patterns for any other clients. Otherwise, they will breach the
copyright of the client.
The client has the right to move the patterns to any other
manufacturers, foundries. The Chinese foundries should help the
moving.
Pattern Cost Refunding and Working Lifetime
If the foundries failed to make qualified samples or batch
production, they should refund the pattern cost to clients, or send
the patterns to other foundries.
The pattern mould cost is one-time cost, clients only need to pay
for the pattern for one time. The foundries and casting
manufacturers should maintain and repair the patterns by their own
cost. Of course, if the current patterns are not enough for large
quantity production, clients may require to make more sets of
pattern to speed up the production, then the clients should pay for
the more patterns.
For any question about pattern and mould costs, please contact our
Dandong Foundry.
The followings are some photos for various patterns.
Iron Pattern for Automatic Molding |
Aluminum Pattern for Manual Green Sand |
Resin Pattern for Resin Sand |
Metal Pattern for Shell Molding |
Aluminum Pattern for Resin Sand |
Wooden Pattern for Sand Casting |
For the cast iron casting
prices, please refer to our "Cast
Iron Price Calculator".
For the cast steel casting prices,
please refer to our "Cast
Steel Price Calculator".
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