Cold Casting & Composites
Copper, bronze and brass powders for cold casting, resin composites and liquid metal applications. Real metal content for genuine appearance, weight and patina.
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Powders for Cold Casting & Composites
Every grade held in UK stock and dispatched fast.
Cold casting uses metal powders mixed into polyurethane or epoxy resin to create objects that look and feel like solid metal. Ronald Britton supplies copper, bronze, brass and aluminium powders in fine coating grades (-200 to -325 mesh) suited to cold casting and composite applications.
All pricing is commodity-linked and changes with spot markets. Contact us for a current quotation to your specification.
What Powder Properties Matter for Cold Casting
Cold casting mixes metal powder into a polyurethane or epoxy resin, so the powder determines almost everything about the finished piece: its colour, weight, surface lustre and ability to patinate. Fine grades between -200 and -325 mesh are the standard because they disperse evenly through the resin, capture mould detail crisply and burnish to a convincing solid-metal surface. Coarser powders sink in the resin and leave a grainy, speckled finish.
The two classic techniques place different demands on the powder. Surface loading (brushing powder-rich resin into the mould face) wants the finest grades for maximum coverage, while through-mixing benefits from a slightly broader size range for economy. Copper, bronze and brass are the traditional cold-casting metals, each developing genuine patina; aluminium and iron extend the palette to cool silver and rustable gunmetal effects. At 90 to 95 percent real metal content in the surface layer, a cold cast piece is chemically identical at the surface to foundry metal, at a fraction of the cost and weight.
| Property | Why It Matters | Typical Spec |
|---|---|---|
| Morphology | Green strength & compressibility | Dendritic preferred |
| Mesh Size | Packing density & sinter uniformity | -100 to -325 |
| Apparent Density | Fill ratio & pressing consistency | 1.2 – 4.8 g/cm³ |
| Purity | Predictable sintering behaviour | 99.5%+ |
| Flowability | Die filling uniformity | Application-dependent |
| Oxygen Content | Bond integrity & porosity | < 0.3% |
| Sinter Temperature | Diamond thermal damage threshold | 700 – 950°C |
Diamond Tools That
Use Our Powders
From quarry-scale stone cutting to precision ceramics grinding — our powders are specified in bond matrices across the full range of diamond tool applications.
Diamond Tooling
Questions & Answers
What is cold casting with metal powder?
Which metals can I cold cast with?
What mesh size should I use?
How much metal powder does a cold cast piece need?
Can the finished piece develop a real patina?
Can I order small quantities for a single project?
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Powders to Spec?
Tell us the materials, mesh sizes and quantities you need. We'll respond with a quotation, usually within one business day.