Need prototype castings? We can help!

If you’re seeking a foundry to produce prototype castings using gray, ductile or austempered ductile iron, you ought to consider State Line Foundries as a potential partner. Our two foundries offer a unique set of capabilities that make them an ideal place to get fast turnarounds on high-quality prototype castings.

Here’s why.

If you need small prototype castings, most foundries that produce them are focused on higher-volume production runs. It’s hard for them to justify diverting production capacity to make prototype castings. Most large casting foundries have limited flexibility with large melting infrastructure, which means they, too, tend to stay focused on production castings.

In contrast, at State Line Foundries, we’ve found a sweet spot that enables us to be flexible, responsive and exceptionally good at producing prototype castings.

Our unique strengths include:

A large size range of castings: We can build tooling and pour a large variety of casting sizes, and complexities from 1 lb. to 2,500 lbs. That enables you to consolidate more of your prototype part production with fewer foundries. That makes your life easier.

Fast turnaround on pattern tooling: Working with trusted local pattern makers, we can usually have high-quality tooling built in about two weeks. Our concurrent processes enable the pattern shop to get started building your tools while we’re doing solidification modeling. When we receive the data from those simulations, we forward it to the pattern shop for proper placement of gating. The result is that your tooling is ready for production, fast.

For very low volume needs, or in a case where an OEM is unsure of a design, we can produce castings without pattern tooling. Our foundries have years of experience designing and procuring 3D sand-printed molds to be poured in our foundries.

Short lead time: Our engineering, quality and foundry teams work collaboratively, which keeps delays to a minimum. Our streamlined processes and checklists keep projects moving quickly through pre-production, so we can be pouring your prototype castings faster than you dreamed possible.

Experienced staff: Reviewing your drawings and our mold simulation data, we’re able to quickly identify and solve problems that could affect the quality and integrity of your castings.

“We’re very good at looking at part and tooling designs and envisioning all of their potential problem areas and failure modes,” explains State Line Foundries quality manager Sean McGough.

Close collaboration with our customers enables our team to solve these problems before the first prototype castings are poured.

Speed and flexibility on the foundry floor: Our line changeover time is extremely fast. We’re set up to pour any alloy on any day. No waiting days or weeks for us to switch over to the material you need for your parts.

Comprehensive testing: Our foundries have all the standard in-house lab testing capabilities needed to certify the chemical, mechanical and dimensional attributes of a casting in real time – without delays waiting on outside lab results. Depending upon the end-use application of the prototype castings, we can do X-ray scanning or section them to check for internal porosity.

Ideal for bridge production: A growing number of customers use State Line Foundries to handle their bridge production needs.

“We create their prototype castings. Once they’re approved, we can also produce their first run of production castings until their production foundry comes online,” McGough says.

We’re up to the challenges of prototype castings

For a company the size of State Line Foundries, producing prototype castings can be a high-stakes game, with little margin for error.

“You really need to know what you’re doing. There’s no room for mistakes. A failure on the first pass can cause huge disruptions with our customers’ build schedules,” McGough emphasizes.

But he relishes the challenge because he’s supremely confident in the experience and expertise of the State Line Foundries team., who have achieved an overall first-pass yield of over 95%.

“We get it right the first time,” he declares.