Colourful 3D prints, made to be loved.

A pattern maker hand-builds a split wooden or metal pattern, plus separate core boxes for every hollow. It needs draft angles and a parting line, and can take weeks.

We design the part in CAD with the sprue, runner and riser built in, then 3D print it as one PolyCast piece in days. No draft angles, no parting line, no core boxes.

Each hollow needs its own sand core, packed in a core box, baked and supported by core prints. Only simple shapes that can be pulled out of a box are possible.

Internal channels and hollows are simply part of the printed pattern. There are no separate cores to make, bake or support, whatever the shape.

The drag and cope are rammed separately, the pattern is lifted out, and the sprue, runner and riser are cut by hand. Lifting the pattern can tear the sand.

Sand is rammed around the one-piece pattern, gating included. Nothing is lifted out, so there is no torn sand and no hand-cut gating.

Cores are placed by hand and the cope is closed onto the drag. Cores can shift, crack or sit off-centre, and the halves can misalign.

Nothing to set and nothing to close. The internal shape is already locked in position inside the pattern, so core shift simply can't happen.

Metal fills an empty cavity. Molten metal can float the core out of place, core gases can cause blowholes, and metal leaks into the parting line as flash.

Metal is poured into the sprue and replaces the PolyCast as it vaporises, taking the exact printed shape. No floating cores and no parting line for flash.

Core sand has to be dug out of the inside, which is very hard in narrow passages. Flash on the parting line has to be ground off, adding fettling time.

Break away the sand, cut off the runner and riser, and finish. No core sand trapped inside and no parting-line flash to grind.