Vacuum Casting

Repeatable, production-like parts for testing, trials and low-volume manufacturing.

Ogle's vacuum casting service provides a fast and cost-effective way to produce small batches of high-quality polyurethane parts with production-like appearance and performance. Ideal for bridging the gap between prototyping and injection moulding, vacuum casting enables businesses to obtain multiple functional parts without the cost and lead time of hard tooling.
The process starts with a master pattern, typically produced using high-resolution SLA 3D printing. Silicone moulds are then created and used to cast polyurethane materials under vacuum conditions, ensuring excellent detail reproduction, consistency and surface finish. Parts can be supplied in a range of colours, finishes and material characteristics, including rigid, flexible, transparent and rubber-like options.
Vacuum casting is particularly suited to low-volume production runs, market testing, engineering validation and customer trials where multiple end-use representative parts are required.

Typical applications include:
- Low-volume production and bridge manufacturing
- Functional prototype batches
- Product testing and validation
- Marketing and evaluation models
- Pre-production parts and pilot runs
- Enclosures, housings and consumer product components

Key benefits:
- Lower cost than injection moulding for very small quantities
- Production-like appearance and material properties
- Excellent surface finish and detail reproduction
- Fast turnaround compared with traditional tooling
- Flexible material and colour options
- Ideal for batches of multiple identical parts
- Easy design changes without costly hard tooling modifications

Vacuum casting is an effective solution when you need more than a prototype but do not yet require production tooling, or volumes are low enough never to warrant tooling. Combined with Ogle's in-house 3D printing, machining, finishing and assembly capabilities, it provides a rapid route to high-quality parts for development, testing and low-volume manufacture.