Tag: Buyer’s Guide

Steel prints two ways: SLM melts it, binder jetting glues and sinters it. Which six grades actually run in industry, what density and tolerance each process holds, and where printing steel loses to machining or casting.

A wax 3D printer for investment casting costs $200,000 to $1M or more. This page separates machine price from the crossover point where printing beats an injection die, with the arithmetic worked through.

Five families, one page: sand binder jetting, SLS, metal binder jetting, SLM and large-format systems — build volumes from 160 mm to 4 m and the 2026 ex-works price band for each.

How selective laser melting works step by step – density, materials, support structures and their real cost, when SLM is the wrong choice, and gradient parts.

A buyer’s checklist for sand mold and core printing – build envelope, sand and binder, accuracy, throughput per shift, post-processing, and machine versus service.

Printed sand molds cut lead time from 2-8 weeks to hours and remove pattern tooling entirely. Compare cycle time, cost by quantity, tolerance and design freedom.

How binder jetting and SLM metal 3D printers differ – density, supports, alloys, throughput and what drives the US,000-570,000 price band.

Six commercial rapid prototyping routes compared on lead time, tolerance, surface finish and cost per part, with the quantity where tooling takes over.

A buyer’s guide to the small batch casting process: when tooling pays off, how to write an RFQ suppliers can actually answer, what drives per-part cost, and how to run a pilot order.

A foundry audit that fits in one visit: the documents to request, what to watch on the floor, a 25-point scorecard, and the findings that should end the visit.