Cast-in Colors

Adding Color to Your Cast Urethanes

At Protogenic, we’re industry leaders in cast-in colors, and providing cast urethanes in the color our Customers specify.  We can use Pantone numbers, physical samples, even a product that’s already on the market as reference, to give your prototypes the look you desire.  Cast-in colors give your cast urethanes the great, custom look your project deserves.  Another great benefit is the ability to mix up the colors of your cast parts, to show off different color schemes to sales, marketing, project managers, even others in your office.  This is particularly useful for marketing samples, and trade show parts, to see how others respond to different color combinations.   Colors come free with your order for a mold and cast urethanes, one color per mold, and additional matches are only $50. 

The process starts with you.  During your SLA master approval, you tell your project manager what color you want each of your parts to be in your cast urethane project.  Your PM takes that information to our shop, where one of our color technicians begins matching the base urethane material to the color specified.   Once your color has been matched, its formula is then replicated and mixed to the base material for your entire casting order.  By mixing the color to the base, we’re able to provide very repeatable colors, for all of your cast parts.  There still may be some part-to-part variation in color, but in most cases the color shifts are quite minimal. 

Our color technicians are the best in the business at matching urethanes to custom colors, however there are some limitations, and some colors can be difficult.  For example, urethanes that have amber/coffee colored bases can’t be made lighter than they are to begin with.  In those cases, your Project Manager will work with you on an alternate color or material selection, to find a solution that works for you.  Also the amber color of the urethane’s base material varies from lot to lot, which means we may see a slight shift in color when making parts from more than one lot of material.  This is more common during mold reintroductions, where a Customer comes back to us for additional castings some time after their original order was fulfilled.  Also, remember most urethanes are not UV stable, and so you may notice a slight shift in color over time.

The bottom line is while we can’t guarantee an exact color match, in most cases our matching is extremely close, with little to no variation from the sample provided.   Though our color technicians are extremely skilled at adding custom colors in your cast urethanes, the process does have some limitations and variation, so when exact color matching and color consistency is a requirement, we recommend having your urethane castings painted.   Please ask your project manager if you’re interested in painting, or if you have any questions at all concerning colors and cast urethanes.