Japanese-headquartered global foundry group “Kimura Foundry” relies on sand binder jetting from Desktop Metal’s ExOne brand at facilities in Japan and the United States to deliver high-quality castings with fast turnarounds
Desktop Metal, Inc. today announced the sale of a 10th digital sand 3D printer to the Kimura Foundry Group, a global network of foundries outfitted with cutting-edge equipment to deliver high-quality castings with increased productivity. Following the purchase of a new S-Max®, Kimura Foundry Group now owns the largest number of ExOne systems globally.
“Kimura Foundry Group is truly leading the way in production use of additive manufacturing, and they are an important partner in our mission to demonstrate the benefits of Additive Manufacturing 2.0 across all industries.”
ExOne, which was acquired by Desktop Metal in late 2021, is the leading digital sand printing solution provider for foundries.
The Kimura Foundry Group fully embraces additive manufacturing as the cornerstone of the next industrial revolution. In the first five years after investing in its first ExOne sand binder jetting machines in 2013, Kimura’s revenue increased more than 500 percent as a result of the speed and design freedom the new system provided to end customers.
To deliver rapid casting solutions for R&D prototypes and aftermarket parts, Kimura successfully launched its Direct Molding Process with six ExOne binder jetting systems across several facilities in Japan. The company expanded globally, establishing Kimura Foundry America in 2018 and building a new foundry in Shelbyville, Indiana around the ExOne sand binder jetting process.
Traditional casting processes require waiting almost 40 days for tooling. Today, with the ability to offer end-to-end rapid prototyping in-house, Kimura 3D prints molds and cores in patented ceramic sand and can produce prototype castings within five days.
A new S-Max system set to be installed this year will be the third S-Max platform printer in the U.S. and the 10th ExOne sand binder jetting system for the company globally. For production flexibility, Kimura Foundry America also owns an ExOne S-Print® with phenolic binder to process specialty castings with high-temperature alloys.
“When we started with this technology, we researched digital sand casting printers from around the world and chose ExOne for their high-end technology that delivered top-quality prints,” said Dr. Yoya Fukuda, President of Kimura Foundry America.
“We are honored that Kimura, a foundry company with such high-quality standards, continues to make us their choice for digital casting solutions,” said Ric Fulop, Co-Founder and CEO of Desktop Metal. “Kimura Foundry Group is truly leading the way in production use of additive manufacturing, and they are an important partner in our mission to demonstrate the benefits of Additive Manufacturing 2.0 across all industries.”
S-Max Binder Jet 3D Printing
ExOne digital casting solutions have leveraged proprietary sand binder jetting technology to successfully create metalcasting tooling for more than twenty years. The S-Max platform, which delivers high quality and speeds for batch and serial production, has been trusted by foundries for over a decade. 3D printing sand molds and cores straight from CAD files enables foundries like Kimura to eliminate months-long lead times and high costs of traditional sand casting tooling. The design freedom of additive manufacturing also enables the production of innovative parts with complex, consolidated geometries for lightweighting and optimized part performance not possible with traditional processes. 3D printing complex cores as one part also eliminates the assembly of multiple components with traditionally produced cores, which is time consuming, labor intensive and often results in scrap and quality challenges.
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