FAIRBORN — Renaissance Services in Fairborn has established a division that specializes in 3D printing. Known as the Perfect-3D Division, it performs a variety of 3D printing, but specializes in printing of ceramic components, primarily for the investment casting industry.
“We’ve been printing ceramics for nearly five years,” said Renaissance Co-Founder Robert Morris. “It was time to raise the status of this activity and give it the emphasis it deserves. We recently moved the operation from Cleveland to Fairborn, Ohio, establishing a fully-integrated operation to go from raw material to finished component.”
Perfect-3D produces ceramic cores, molds and filters for use by foundries that produce investment castings for aerospace and defense aircraft, engines and support equipment. An area of particular interest is castings for “legacy” military systems that no longer have readily available sources for castings used to produce key components, including gearboxes and housings. Morris notes that Renaissance and Perfect- 3D have received contracts from military agencies to seek reduced cost and lead times.
“These castings often have scant technical data and tooling no longer exists,” Morris said. “New tooling typically costs six-figures, taking months to produce. Our concept of ‘CAD as tooling’ produces a ceramic mold using our own patent pending process. We then work with foundries to produce castings just like the original, filling a critical cost and lead time gap. We recently worked with a production foundry to go from CAD model to a finished legacy engine gearbox casting in 26 days. Contrast this with the two year lead times that we regularly hear about from the military sustainment community.”
Perfect-3D relies on expertise of chemistry industry leader BASF and foundries across the country. Each foundry brings an important capability to the effort, including the ability to work with a wide range of materials, including aluminum, magnesium and nickel-based alloys. Perfect-3D produces the components on the equipment at its facility in Fairborn.
“We use materials from BASF and Prodways ProMaker L5000 3D printing machines to generate the ceramic molds,” Morris said. “We purchased ProMaker L5000 serial number one from Prodways three years ago and have had a very successful relationship. When considering equipment options for printing ceramics, we found Prodways equipment to be the best value, offering leading edge technical capability and durability.”
Morris cites BASF as a key partner,
“BASF is our exclusive source for the photopolymer resins that are combined with ceramic material to enable our 3D printing of ceramic components,” he said. “BASF has supported us with R&D resources, materials and expertise to continually find better solutions and grow our capability.”
Morris said the Perfect-3D Division represents a commitment by Renaissance to its current and prospective customers.
“We want the industry to know that we are in this for the long haul and that the Perfect-3D Division offers a one-stop-shop that is singularly focused on 3D printed cores, molds, and filters,” Morris said.
