Ford and Sharrow Engineering cut propeller production time from months to weeks with 3D printed sand-casting

Ford Motor Company's Advanced Industrial Technology & Platforms (ATP) division and Sharrow Engineering have replaced a 130-day precision investment casting process with a 3D printed sand-casting workflow, reducing lead times for the patented Sharrow Propeller to approximately two weeks. The collaboration, brokered by Detroit's Michigan Central innovation hub, involved nine months of design adaptation and validation for serial production. Ford contributed over two decades of in-house sand-casting expertise, working with regional foundries to scale the process. Greg Sharrow, founder and CEO of Sharrow Engineering, stated that production capacity had become the company's primary bottleneck despite surging demand from recreational boat builders, commercial operators, and government fleets.

This partnership is a textbook example of the industrial-tooling pull-through pattern, where a large OEM's mature AM capability — in this case, Ford's 20-year history with binder jet sand-casting — is applied to solve a scaling problem for a smaller innovator. The shift from investment casting to 3D printed sand molds cuts tooling cost and eliminates pattern storage, directly addressing the production bottleneck that constrained Sharrow's market growth. The deal also illustrates the consumer-electronics titanium pull-through dynamic in reverse: Sharrow's core propeller technology, already proven in marine propulsion, is being evaluated for drones, advanced air mobility, industrial fans, pumps, and renewable energy systems. For Ford, the project validates its sand-casting infrastructure as a service asset beyond automotive, strengthening its position in the broader AM services ecosystem.

From a practical standpoint, Sharrow must now demonstrate that the sand-cast propellers meet the same performance and durability standards as the investment-cast originals across its full product range. The company's fourth facility expansion in five years — to a 5,574-square-meter center in Harper Woods, Michigan — signals confidence in demand, but the real test will be maintaining quality at higher throughput. For buyers evaluating Sharrow propellers, the shorter lead time removes a major procurement friction point, but qualification data for non-marine applications remains early-stage.