Coventry-based Sarginsons Industries has become the first foundry in the UK to invest in inorganic 3D sand core printing technology, committing £800,000 to a system capable of producing printed cores at around 54 litres per hour. The move is aimed at cutting the time to a finished aluminium casting from as long as six to eight weeks down to as little as 24 hours.
Faster Cores, Cleaner Casting
The new printer slots into Sarginsons’ broader push to industrialise British casting production. For OEMs, the faster turnaround opens room to design more complex, lightweight components without the manufacturability trade-offs that typically come with traditional core-making methods.
The technology’s advantage extends beyond speed. Unlike conventional organic binder systems, which release gases during casting that can become trapped in the finished part and affect quality and mechanical performance, the inorganic process removes that risk almost entirely. That, Sarginsons says, translates into cleaner, more consistent castings and enables “next day” turnaround in place of the industry’s standard six-to-eight-week wait. The process also improves sand recyclability, cuts waste, and simplifies core removal after casting, streamlining production further.
Gavin Shipley, technical director at Sarginsons Industries, tied the investment to the company’s environmental and customer commitments: “Becoming the first UK foundry with this capability demonstrates our commitment to investing in technologies that deliver tangible benefits for our customers, our industry and the environment.” He added that the system lets Sarginsons “produce increasingly complex castings much faster than the industry is used to, while simultaneously improving quality and reducing the environmental impact of the manufacturing process,” helping manufacturers meet demand for lighter, higher-performing parts without sacrificing sustainability. Shipley said he expects the underlying technology “to play an increasingly important role in the future of aluminium casting.”
Inside the Tech: From Organic to Inorganic Core Printing
Sarginsons’ relationship with 3D sand printing didn’t start with this investment. The Coventry foundry, which traces back to 1936 as a pattern maker for Spitfire engines before growing into one of the UK’s leading aluminium foundries, already runs a Voxeljet VX1000 printer for organic-binder sand cores and moulds, used chiefly to produce the more complex, organically shaped cores that topological optimisation and targeted cooling designs demand.
The investment slots into a wider stack of in-house casting technology, digital twin simulation, topological lightweighting, and tooling and pattern design through group associate Pattern Solutions, that Sarginsons uses to push what sand casting can achieve.
It also sits alongside two other initiatives already underway: the £5.8 million government-backed PIVOT (Performance Integrated Vehicle Optimisation Technology) programme, which the company leads, and proposals for a £30 million Future Foundry casting industrialisation hub, currently in development. Together, the three efforts point to a business positioning itself around faster, cleaner, and more automated production as UK manufacturers push to scale up advanced casting capability domestically.
Foundries Racing to Cut the Pattern-Making Bottleneck
Sarginsons’ strategy targets a key industry’s bottleneck: pattern-making, which can stretch lead times. By printing sand cores directly from digital files, the company sidesteps that step entirely, betting that speed, quality, and reduced emissions together make the case for domestic, industrialised casting rather than offshored, tooling-heavy production.
Other foundries are moving the same way. In July 2025, German pump maker Herborner Pumpentechnik acquired a Laempe L3D-200 printer to produce sand cores and casting molds in-house, choosing it after visiting existing Laempe foundry customers for its modular, foundry-compatible setup.
At the other end of the scale, Baettr’s foundry in Sweden validated voxeljet’s large-format VX9000 printer in 2025, casting molds weighing up to 7,200 kilograms without detectable defects.
Sarginsons’ £800,000 investment sits between those two: a mid-sized UK foundry scaling from a single existing 3D sand printer into industrial-grade production.
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Featured image shows Sand Casting. Photo via Sarginsons Industries.
