Domestic Engineered Solutions for Your Toughest Precast Challenges: Step Two
Form (Manufacturing the Mold)
Onex’s 55 years in business gives us a depth of experience creating and building molds in shapes and sizes that other suppliers just can’t match.
Our team is trained in designing and manufacturing mold forms, mixing and pouring materials, curing the cast shape, and high-temperature firing as well as careful packaging of the product. Onex provides delivery services as well, guaranteeing on-time and safe delivery.
Building the mold that will form the precast shape is the second step in the precast process. The Onex team relies on our extensive experience to determine how the mold should be built, how the mold should be poured, how to remove the shape from the mold (strip), how the team should handle it, get it to the furnace, and how they should fire the mold.
Onex has integrated rapid prototyping techniques into our molding process to reduce the front-end time required to develop a new precast shape. As long as the shape can be scanned into a CAD program, we can cut out a mold, pour refractory material to make the part, and have it ready to go in a fraction of the time it normally takes.
There are benefits to each type of mold. Permanent molds such as steel are a more expensive option, but longer-lasting, whereas temporary molds like wood and styrofoam are typically the quickest and cheapest to make with the latter being extremely easy and virtually free to accommodate post-production design changes. All the cost implications and benefits should be considered without prejudice to material type.
Due to the many years the Onex team has been making molds and the wide variety of molds for various clients over the years, we have cultivated a culture of extraordinary attention to detail including the tricky step of stripping the mold after casting. Molds are initially prepared to take the cast material. Prior to pouring and even mixing the material, Onex preps the molds with a release agent. Every precast shape made requires a specific release agent, which may vary based on casting heat and materials so that it can be extracted from the mold intact.
Release agents are critical to successful demolding as well as surface quality and final appearance. Onex’s team has experience with everything from petroleum-based lubricants and other additives for ease of release. With the correct release agent, you can reduce sharp edges, air pockets, and flashing while improving overall surface quality.
Onex has made literally thousands of shapes with success. Using this expertise, we have optimized the mold-making process to extend the life of our precast shapes for customers.
“ONEX was able to provide us with some fantastic precast refractory solutions that have been great. Previously we were replacing troughing twice a year. 4 years ago we used ONEX precast shapes for our troughs and just recently replaced one. They kept the forms used to make our trough so getting replacements is a breeze.” William Allison, Superintendent at Pennex Aluminum Co.
