Sand casting is an incredibly versatile production process that has been utilized for centuries to create machine parts with complex designs. It is one of the oldest casting methods and remains a popular choice today due to its affordability and impressive results. At Protocast, we specialize in forging the highest-quality metal components for a myriad of industries and uses. Our...

At Protocast Inc, we specialize in aluminum, magnesium, and zinc castings complete with CNC machining for global OEMs. Our goal is to satisfy our customer's needs with the highest-quality products and casting services in the Denver area. Read below to find out why we are the best partner to work with for your needs and visit us online to...

At Protocast in Commerce City, precision sand casting is one of the many metal manufacturing services we offer. In today’s blog post, we are going to discuss some of the advantages of choosing precision sand casting over other types of metal manufacturing. Read on to learn more.

At Protocast, we pride ourselves on manufacturing high-quality metal components. We use a number of complementary processes, including die casting, CNC machining, and precision sand casting. In today’s blog...

When most people think of casting, they think of the sand casts used to produce intricate parts and products. While yes, sand casting is one of the most recognizable forms of casting and is widely used as a favored production method, it is not always the most efficient type of cast — especially if your priority is quick production.

For customers who are looking for a casting method that is cost-efficient and easily scalable, permanent...

At Protocast Inc., we are proud to offer a number of high-quality CNC machining services to our customers in the Denver area. All of our engineers are experts in the unique challenges associated with casting and machining and have experience making flawless dies, tools, and prototypes.

If you are interested in our CNC machining services, be sure to contact a member of our team today....

At Protocast Inc., we are the premier foundry in the greater Denver area. But you don’t get to be the premier foundry by simply offering casting and machining services — you also need to go above and beyond.

When our team begins a new project, we do so with the intent to cast or machine a prototype or intricate part with the hopes and goal that it is precision-made, strong, and meets all the functional needs of our clients. One of the...

At Protocast Inc. we have been providing the greater Denver area with prototype casting and industrial casting services for over 20 years. As we have grown in size, we have noticed more and more that while our customers really want a beautiful product that has gone through rapid prototype casting, they also want to get a better idea of how their prototype has been cast. After all, when people think of casting they simply think of pouring...

As a foundry in Denver, we often get the question “What is the difference between die casting and CNC machining?” And oftentimes, when we get that question it is quickly followed up with “How do I know what method of production is best for my project?”

Both questions are valid, being that the intricacies of the work we do in our foundry are often murky for people that have never directly worked in one, or even taken a tour of a...

There are many different kinds of casting, but one of the more common types of casting is stainless steel investment casting. As a Commerce City, Colorado foundry, we often work with stainless steel to cast prototypes and tools for our clients. But why do we use steel so often?

At Protocast Inc., we specialize in manufacturing prototypes and models for our clients — and there are many methods that we can use to do so. Among the common ways that we manufacture prototypes is sand casting. Whether you need to eliminate product design flaws, simulate your di-cast parts before investing in machining, or produce anywhere from one to 5,000 castings a year, Protocast Inc. is here to help.

Most people think that they...

The prototype industry is unique in that it is constantly evolving, much more so than your average field of business. For metal shops like ours to stay viable and ahead of the curve, we must always be pushing ourselves to further our education and industry knowledge. In order to stay at the top of the market, it takes a unique company that, from the top down, is dedicated to continuously challenging themselves by learning new processes....

Let’s dive right into today’s post, which, as the title no doubt already gave away, is all about aluminum casting. Briefly, though, allow us to explain when and why you would use Protocast Inc., beyond the obvious purposes of the aforementioned aluminum casting services.

We are a Denver machine shop that is experienced in working with a wide range of client types — businesses that hail from a diverse group of industries, from automotive, aerospace, and defense, to medical, robotics, and oil & gas.

We specialize in aluminum, magnesium, and zinc cast and CNC machine parts for these industries most commonly, but don’t be alarmed if you aren’t seeing your field listed above — our Denver foundry offers...

People choose Protocast Inc to be their Denver metal shop of choice because our company manufactures metal components in prototype and low-volume production quantities better than anyone else around — and we do it for an affordable rate. No matter if you have one part or 12,000 that need manufacturing, we offer the functional components, assemblies, and casting knowledge to bring you a viable solution within a reasonable timeframe. We...

Protocast Inc. is your one-stop-shop in Denver for all things metal casting. From prototype to production, we specialize in aluminum, zinc, and magnesium cast along with CNC machined parts for industries such as oil and gas, robotics, medical, defense, aerospace, automotive, and beyond. Below you’ll find a summary of each of our bread-and-butter services we employ at our Denver metal shop.

• Toolmaking - if it looks like you’ll be...

Protocast Inc. offers rapid prototype to production castings for a range of industries. Specializing in non-ferrous alloys, we are a Denver Machine shop that is experienced in aluminum, zinc, and magnesium cast and CNC-machined parts for automotive, defense, aerospace, robotics, medical, and oil and gas industries.

Whether you are looking for a Denver foundry for the sake of stimulating your die-cast parts before paying for...

If you’ve been looking for a prototype casting company in Denver, you’ve come to the right place. From prototype to production, we here at Protocast Inc. specialize in aluminum, magnesium, and zinc casting along with CNC machined parts for automotive, defense, medical, Oil & Gas, robotics, and aerospace industries, among others.

That’s a pretty general take, seeing as how you can find that precise snippet of a company biography at...

From prototype to production, we at ProtoCast Inc offer clean, efficient manufacturing with specializations in aluminum, zinc, magnesium cast along with CNC machines parts for applications in oil and gas, robotics, medical, defense, aerospace, automotive, and other industries. Whether you are interested in tool making, machined parts, aluminum heat treating, or one of our seven different casting processes, we’ve got you covered in and around...

If you are like most people, and you get almost any and all needed information from Google, you’d find that investment casting has a fairly simple definition: “a technique for making small, accurate castings in refractory alloys using a mold formed around a pattern of wax or similar material which is then removed by melting.”

If you dare to go a step further, you’d find that you are just a few clicks away from a more thorough...

Whether you are in need of rapid prototype casting for aluminum, magnesium, or a zinc cast, we at Protocast Inc. oversee projects from prototype to production, utilizing clean and efficient manufacturing processes to provide our customers with an affordable casting resource when they need it most. Established in 1995, we are a Denver foundry and machine shop that specializes in the manufacturing of non-ferrous prototype to production cast and...

In posts of the past, we’ve tackled a variety of topics. From interesting shapes you probably didn’t know the names of to gift ideas for the mechanic or inventor in your life, it’s safe to say we’ve covered a...

If you didn’t check out our previous post about irregular and uncommon shapes, you might be thinking, “A blog about shapes? What am I, a preschooler?” Without additional context, that is a fair assumption, dear reader. However, the reason we’re continuing to cover odd shapes is not only because they’re interesting (we’re engineers and math is fun, give us a break!), but because they’re...

Circles, squares, octagons and even parallelograms - in school, most people are taught basic shapes at a relatively young age, and continue on to learn about more complex geometrical arrangements in the context of math class. Now, with that being said, do you really know what an enneagram or a triquetra is? Perhaps so, but our point here is that there exist a number of lesser-known shapes that people may visually recognize, but...

The average consumer might not give it that much thought, but many things we use on a daily basis required precise tool and die cutting at one point or another. From transportation to construction, tool making and die cutting have their importance in building today’s world as we know it - literally! Here at Protocast Inc., we’re proud to work in the machining industry, serving Colorado as the preferred Denver machine shop that countless...

There’s a good reason, if not several good reasons, why we do what we do here at Protocast Inc. By ensuring that our clients have a product or tool prototype that meets their exact specifications and engineering requirements, we can verify that something is exactly as it should be prior to a full-scale production run. From motorcycle parts to niche tools, we’re in the business of saving other businesses tons of money in the long run, not to...

In our previous blog post, the diecast tooling experts here at Protocast Inc. took a look at collecting diecast cars - something that’s not quite the same as what we do, but with the same name of “diecast”, we figured, why not? While another post on the matter might not fully illustrate the art of collecting diecast cars, we’ll give it our best shot.

At one point or another, we’ve all collected something. Whether you were into rocks as a kid (it’s still perfectly cool to collect them as a fully-grown adult, too!) or you’ve amassed an impressive selection of vintage wine in your basement cellar, there’s just something about a great collection that instills a sense of pride in the collector. Well, our die casting experts here at our Denver machine shop figured that it was only appropriate...

Aluminum is an incredibly useful metallic resource, and given how common aluminum is in today’s world, it shouldn’t be any surprise that we do aluminum casting here at Protocast Inc. When it comes to sheer versatility and variety of uses, no other metal really compares to aluminum. Not only is aluminum the third most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, but it’s also the third most abundant element overall. A highly recyclable material,...

Stainless steel is practically everywhere in today’s world. Even if you’re a bit frustrated that your sleek, brand new stainless steel fridge won’t allow magnets to stick to the surface (some fridges have actually addressed this complaint), there’s no doubt that stainless steel is a useful, clean and quite versatile material. Why are we writing about stainless steel? Well, like aluminum, zinc, and magnesium, our Denver foundry also works with...

Is there someone special in your life that just enjoys making things? Does the thought of brand new tools to hang up in the garage excite your husband or you good friend, inspiring them to create a wacky invention just because they can? Well, you’re in the right place by landing on this blog post. You see, at Protocast Inc., we also enjoy creating things and making things - it’s literally what we do on a daily basis. From intricate...

At Protocast Inc., we’re heavily involved in the tool-making industry. Our Denver-based machine shop can create many intricate and precise components and parts that meet the needs of many different industries. What this means to us is that we’re quite familiar with a lot of niche tools that other people probably haven’t even heard of. We’re sure that you’ve at least heard the name “CNC machine” or “foundry” before, but do you know what...

If you’ve followed our recent blog posts here at Protocast Inc., then you’ll know that we’ve recently touched on the early history of tools and human civilization. Again, while historians dedicate their entire professional lives studying such a thing in detail, it’s nice to touch on the historical highlights of such an important development in human history that literally shaped society and...

It’s interesting how we can understand what something is and how to use it, or know what it’s used for, and yet, when put on the spot, we cannot define what it is. So, when it comes to something as simple as the word “tool”, how would you define it? According to Merriam Webster, a tool can be defined as “a handheld device that aids in accomplishing a task” or “any physical item that can be used to achieve a goal, especially if the item is not...

It’s not likely that you’ll walk into our Denver machine shop to find us working with metals like Adamantium or Bombastium. In fact, it’s impossible for you to discover what we’re casting and prototyping with these kinds of metals because they actually don’t exist! While Protocast Inc. frequently works with real metal materials like stainless steel, zinc, magnesium, aluminum and other various alloys, we figured that we might as well enjoy...

In a follow-up to our tool cutting appreciation post, Protocast Inc. is back again to touch on a number of movies that feature tool cutting and tool making in the story. In our biased opinion, we think that this important practice just doesn’t get enough attention or glorification like other professions do in movies. Things like CNC machining and machined parts play a very important role in today’s modern-day economy and have for quite some...

This might not come across as overly surprising, but as it turns out, there aren’t a ton of machined tool enthusiasts out there (well, at least none like us here at Protocast Inc.). While rapid prototyping is our main specialty, our Denver foundry can machine specialty tools down to whatever your specifications are. From the automotive industry to robotics, we’re proud to serve the Front Range of Colorado for whatever your tooling or rapid...

They say that you can never be too safe, and when it comes to something as serious as dealing with molten metal, that’s absolutely the case. Well, we’re not exactly sure who originally said that, but the point remains true that safety is our number one priority in our metal casting and rapid investment prototyping operations.

Prototype Casting is committed to providing your business operation or industry with reliable, accurate and...

You’ve heard it once and you’ll hear it again: “Safety first!” When it comes to just about anything, safety should always come first. As you can probably imagine, there are a great number of safety precautions to take into consideration when it comes to metal casting. After all, metal casting is an inherently dangerous activity that can result in serious injury and should be treated with good judgment and caution on the practitioner's behalf....

We’re heavily involved in the prototyping and metal casting industries- after all, it’s in our name! If you’re curious about the benefits of rapidly creating prototypes but you’re not sure how exactly to utilize our services, then this post is for you.

As a top-quality foundry and machine shop in the Denver area, our efficient production and reproduction of various parts come in the form of optimized planning. Our production methods...

When it comes to metal casting, Prototype Casting is proud to deliver high-quality, efficient metal prototyping and casting services. We’re always excited to talk about our production methods and other aspects of our prototyping and casting service. However, we’ve never really touched on the importance of a machine shop itself: our home, our physical environment and a place where things simply get done and get done right.

All of our...

Though the metal casting and machine shop processes might initially come across as rather straightforward and cut and dry, there is a surprising amount of misinformation surrounding the metal casting industry. At Prototype Casting, we believe in using the best, safest and most efficient practices in the machine shop and metal casting industry to assure that our products are casted with the utmost accuracy.

In order to be a more informed...

Most of the pieces we work on in our metal foundry will need to undergo some sort of inspection process. To make this easier for our customers, we can provide many of the common inspection services needed in-house, including:

• Pressure tests. These tests are often required to ensure the piece can withstand a certain amount of pressure beyond what it would normally experience without permanently damaging the piece.
• Leak...

Most of the work done in our aluminum foundry has to do with prototyping pieces for future products. These projects usually require as few as five pieces, meaning we do many short runs on a lot of different projects. But prototyping work isn’t all that we do. Our aluminum foundry is capable of producing anywhere from 5 to 5,000 pieces to meet your project needs. In fact, some companies rely on our aluminum foundry to produce their short-run...

We’ve worked with hundreds of companies and individuals on their prototyping needs. Our experience has helped us refine the process for creating a prototype so we can be confident that we’re giving you the best possible finished product based on your designs. Here is the three-step process that we go through with our clients in order to ensure they are getting just what they need:

1. Choosing a metal. We work with a variety of metals,...

Metal casting has gained popularity as a home hobby in recent years due in part to the emerging maker culture and people eager to learn how to do traditional trades themselves. It’s a fun hobby and can be an incredibly useful one. However, if you need to have a prototype made, you will be better off working with a professional metal foundry than doing it yourself or relying on a metal-casting friend. Here is why a professional metal foundry...

Nothing lasts forever, not even the finest crafted metal piece. The parts and pieces that you use on your machines every day are going to experience wear and tear, and eventually, that wear and tear are going to result in a part that no longer does its job. While you could buy a whole new machine, it’s likely less expensive (and more eco-friendly!) to simply replace the worn out part. That’s where our metal casting team can help. We can...

One of the things our metal foundry is very good at is reverse engineering. This means you have a piece that you need to recreate but aren’t sure how it was made. We employ experienced, knowledgeable engineers who love to work on a puzzle like this. They will take your piece apart, figure out how it works and how it was made, and then create a plan to remake it. Reverse engineering can be a complicated process depending on the pieces that you...

Our aluminum foundry offers aluminum heat treating for your project. This process is used to harden and strengthen parts made in our aluminum casting process in our foundry. Heat treating can result in a stronger, more durable end product for our customers. Heat treating aluminum requires a very specific process that must be followed exactly for the best results. Each piece needs to be heated in a furnace to an exact temperature for a certain...

When you work with the metal casting team at Prototype Casting, Inc., you’ll be working with experienced engineers and metal casting professionals who have been working with metal for years. They have an extensive knowledge about the properties of the different metals we use in our casting process as well as knowledge about the seven different casting methods that we use. Because of their experience both in metal casting and engineering, we...

Before you invest in prototype casting, it is important to research the industry, the basic processes, and how to optimize the casts for your specific needs. Thoroughly research alloy specifications and compare to your requirements and needs. Our alloy options include aluminum, magnesium, zinc, and stainless steel which are used for various necessities in casting a prototype.

Welcome to your go-to experts in innovative prototype casting. Our specialty in the production Prototype Casting Inc. is possible because of our dedication to being a leader in the competitive field of prototype casting. We are with our customers every step of the way including part development, choosing materials, producing designs and machining to achieve accurate and optimal casting. Our method of casting is outlined...

If you are ready to send your prototype to the metal casting team at Prototype Casting, one thing we'll need to determine is which metal is right for your project. We work with a variety of metals, including aluminum, steel, zinc, bronze and iron. Each one has its own unique properties that can either benefit or detract from your final prototype, depending on your project.

Metal and die casting is a competitive manufacturing process that involves companies from all over the world. And there are businesses here in America who will search the world to find the best prices in die casting. But in the long run, they often wind up paying more than expected or deal with other problems. Don’t be tricked into thinking you are getting a great deal by sending your work to companies located overseas. There have been...

Die casting is believed to have had its humble birth sometime during the middle of the 19th century. According to records, the first die casting equipment was invented in 1838 with the sole purpose of manufacturing parts for the moveable type machines responsible for the printing industry. Eleven years later, the first patent related to die casting was granted. In fact, printing facilities had a great amount influence in early days of die...

Die casting is one of the most prolific and versatile metal working processes used at a metal foundry. This process can be used to create an endless amount of parts in diverse varieties from every possible industry. Basically, if you need a particular part, chances are die casting could be the way to go. Die casting began in the mid-nineteenth century, but advances in technology have kept moving it forward and improvements are always being...

Ordering castings from your metal foundry can be a time-consuming process. A cooperative effort between you and the foundry is essential in successfully sourcing a casting product. In order to help avoid misunderstandings and reduce costs, the following information should be addressed when requesting a quote.

Metal casting is often explained as the transformation of fluid metal into a designed form or specific shape. There are several commercial casting process, each that holds their own special benefits. It is something you need to take into consideration before making manufacturing decisions.

Casting allows a designer to put the molten metal where it is needed the most. Items can be contoured and streamlined for better cosmetic appeal. The...

In the metal foundry industry, there are several types of casting, but each type has a common goal. There are many people out there who use the names of these quite different casting processes interchangeably. This is just one reason we like to partner with our customers, so the right casting is implemented for their specific project.

The casting processes themselves are as different as the names of the processes. That is, die casting...

Die casting is a metal casting process characterized by forcing molten metal under high pressure into a cavity and is usually performed at a metal foundry. This procedure is useful in the mass production of items that need to be very accurate according to specifications. Die casting is an appealing process for many business owners as it is a cost-effective method for the manufacturing of sturdy items and parts. When selecting the appropriate...

New Haas Gantry Mill Increases Tooling Envelope and Increases Capacity

Investment casting is a very important aspect of our business here at Prototype Casting. But what exactly is investment casting, and why does it matter? In today’s post, we’ll outline the process for investment casting, it’s importance, and it’s place in the context of a machine shop.

Throughout human history, mankind has sought out to make things easier, more efficient, and more sustainable to benefit themselves as well as generations to come. The reduction in labor since early times is a major payoff when it comes to innovation. For millennia, mankind has manipulated the natural resources available on earth in order to ensure its survival and improve its overall quality of life.

Prototype Casting is carrying on the...

How It All Began

Our foundry began machining per the request of our customers in 2002. Three years later, Prototype Casting began cutting tools from pattern board on Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) equipment. This transition allowed for higher speeds in CNC machining than our company previously experienced. Today, we are able to produce a high volume of designs between our 10 CNC machines. Our machines allow for us...

Casting prototypes of tools and parts is a complex process that must be done with precision and executed by trained and experienced professionals. At Prototype Casting, our experts take your most complex designs, give advice for design modifications when necessary, and turn your ideas into a reality. There are many ways to cast a part and each method has specific advantages including production speed, wall thickness, complex geometry, and...