<p>Lost foam tooling is generally considered prohibitively expensive with long lead times. This is driven by the tool’s design complexity, requiring extensive development utilizing machined foam patterns, and limiting it to high production volumes. Significant market opportunities for the lost foam process are available if tool costs and lead times can be reduced to be competitive with conventional processes like automatic matchplates, high pressure green sand equipment and even highly-cored, chemical-bonded sand processes. This project was conducted to support the AFS Lost Foam Division goals of expanding the marketability and viability of the lost foam casting (LFC) process. The project results demonstrate that production of 3D-printed LFC tools for prototypes and aftermarket operations (high mix, low volume) can also be applied to high volume production operations. Lost foam tools developed using the additive manufacturing technologies of powder bed laser, stereolithography and fused deposition modeling were shown to be competitive with conventional subtractive machining methods. To provide an accurate comparison to the known process parameters such as cycle time and pattern quality, a base existing mold design was used for all tool versions in all phases of the study.</p>