In the furniture industry, the production of durable, aesthetically pleasing components is essential for creating high-quality products. Vacuum casting is an effective method for producing precise, durable, and lightweight plastic parts for furniture, such as table legs, handles, and structural supports. Polyurethane and ABS are popular materials used in furniture component manufacturing due to their strength, flexibility, and ability to be molded into complex shapes.

Polyurethane is a versatile material that can be cast into various densities and hardness levels, making it suitable for producing flexible or rigid parts. It is commonly used for furniture components that require cushioning, like armrests or chair pads, as well as for decorative items such as table bases or drawer pulls. ABS, known for its impact resistance and dimensional stability, is used in furniture for structural parts like table legs, cabinet supports, and handles that need to maintain strength under pressure and frequent use.

The vacuum casting process begins with the creation of a master model, which can be made through D printing or CNC machining. This model is used to create a silicone mold, which captures all the fine details of the furniture component design. Liquid Polyurethane or ABS resin is injected into the mold under vacuum conditions, ensuring that the resin fills every cavity and produces high-quality parts with smooth surfaces and accurate dimensions.

The key advantages of using vacuum casting for furniture components include the ability to rapidly prototype new designs, customize parts for specific furniture pieces, and produce small batches of custom components.

Vacuum casting is one of the most cost-effective ways to produce high quality, low volume plastic parts which can be similar to injection moulding parts.

• The parts are especially suitable for form, fit and function tests during the embodiment design stages
• Can be used for marketing, field user testing and product design verification purposes
• Many Urethane casting resins available to satisfy a wide range of design requirements
• Materials available to create parts that are fully opaque, translucent or completely transparent
• High-quality wax masters can be made for investment casting to increase finer details

Polyurethane is a polymer material formed by polyol and polyisocyanate through polycondensation reaction with excellent mechanical properties, which is extremely plastic. Its synthesis can be traced back to 1937. Several major classifications include polyether-type, polyester-type, polyimide-type, and polyurea-type.

After nearly eighty years of technological development, this material has a wide range of applications involving products such as coatings, adhesives, fabric finishes, leather modifiers, polyurethane soft/rigid foam, elastomers, etc., which are used in the fields of textiles, construction, aviation, shipping, transportation, medicine, electronics, and more.

Flexible Polyurethane: Linear structure with thermoplasticity, better stability, chemical resistance, resilience and mechanical properties than PVC foams. Used as packaging, sound insulation and filtration materials.

Rigid Polyurethane: Lightweight, superior thermal insulation performance, chemical resistance, good electrical properties. Mainly used in construction, automotive, aviation industry as thermal insulation structure materials.

Polyurethane Elastomer: Performance between plastic and rubber, oil resistance, abrasion resistance, low temperature resistance. Mainly used in shoe industry and medical industry.