3D Printed Rapid Prototyping

3D Printed Rapid Prototyping is the quick and affordable way to ensure your concepts are fit for purpose and function before you commit to the design and manufacture. When you are looking to build a new product or feature, you want to be sure it will work in the way you believe it to. Dean Group can assist your product development process with quality investment casting test parts prior to production tooling. Additional to production requirements Dean Group is committed to support all companies no matter their size in their pursuit of product creation no matter the batch size.

With our 3D printing systems we can offer affordable one off or continuous production orders bespoke from a vast range of alloys. All castings are made in the UK at our ISO 9001:2015 approved foundry located in Manchester. Best still, all of the above is UK made and UK manufactured.

Benefits of Rapid Prototyping

Dean Group’s 3D printing services along with our dedicated and experienced team will allow you to better design, test & manufacture products all within a matter of weeks. The flexibility of offering is suitable for all on any project and or endeavour. Other benefits are:

  • Swift product turnaround improves speed to market
  • Genuine processes and materials used for all prototypes
  • Product validation prior to full-scale roll-out
  • Allows for design changes prior to release
  • Eliminates time spent re-designing and crafting after production begins
  • Allows for direct comparison testing of alternative design concepts
  • Manufactured from your own CAD data

3D Printed Rapid Prototyping is one of the best ways to minimise development costs on iterations of your product. Testing the theory of your design before full product development allows you to reduce the development costs of your product as it helps you avoid the chance of building something which doesn’t work or has snags. It also avoids any embarrassing and costly issues that customers may come across when your product launches.

Thermojet Wax Modelling System

Using a 3D model, we’ll create a wax replica of your part, built in layers using thermojet (printed) technology as part of our rapid prototyping process. These can then be processed at our Manchester plant in a matter of weeks, then provided to you with castings that have gone through the same manufacturing procedure as, and are functionally identical to, their hard-tooled counterparts just without the need to commit or pay for tooling.

The advantage of this particular process is just how quick it is, being much quicker than other available options. As such, the thermojet wax system acts as an efficient way to create small quantities of parts for validation or just small one-off batch orders.

As specialists in Lost Wax Casting, Dean Group can take your initial wax model and use it to help you create the finished metal piece you need.

3D Model Manufacture

For us to be able to assist in manufacture of parts a 3D model must be offered. We usually would expect a base 3D model to be supplied or a 2D drawing to reference off but we understand that not all persons or companies have the ability or the technical knowledge on production of 3D models suitable for 3D printing and investment casting. With that knowledge Dean Group offer the service of 3D model generation with our experienced design team to get your parts manufactured in quick time. Please get in touch for more details on this.