The Investment Casting Process
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How Investment Castings are Made
Investment casting image courtesy of Ferralloy, Inc.
A wide range of parts can be created by the investment casting process. Industrial products, commercial products and even consumer products are regularly produced by investment casting operations. Typically, investment casting is used for the creation of products with complex profiles in comparatively limited quantities. This can make investment casting somewhat more Continue reading
Advancements in the Creation of Investment Casting Products
Investment casting image courtesy of Rimer Enterprises, Inc.
Investment casting can be used to create products with very complex tolerances. It is a precise process, but it is also complicated and time-consuming. Complication and time-intensiveness are two features that can make a process unattractive to industrial operations and their clients. One of the most highly complicating factors in the investment casting process is that the layering of ceramic materials and sand around wax patterns can take days or even weeks because of Continue reading
The Brilliance of Lost Wax Casting
Investment castings image courtesy of JDH Pacific.
Investment casting really is a brilliant process. The history of the practice dates back many centuries, and it has continued to perform well as a casting method ever since. There are many reasons why investment casting has persevered for such a long time, but the principal reason is this: investment casting works. The process has come to be known by several names besides investment casting, but the most meaningful and widely-used alternative name is Continue reading
Understanding Wax Casting
The fact that investment casting is also known as “wax casting” and “lost wax casting” can make it difficult for outsiders to understand the process. “Lost wax casting” is a bit of a confusing term, but “wax casting” just seems like an outright misnomer (at least when the term is used in connection with investment casting). After all, the investment casting process is not about casting a wax product and Continue reading
Brass Investment Castings – Attractive for Many Reasons
I was asked to think of a valve and describe it, I would be torn between picking one of two images that pop into my head. I’m picturing a metal spigot with a waffley-shaped handle that spins around a central axis. It’s the kind of valve that I connect to a garden hose to water my lawn. The other image that comes to mind is the kind of valve that I saw frequently in mechanical rooms when I worked as a janitor in college. These valves feature a long, slender, rectangular Continue reading
Stainless Steel Investment Casting: Golf Clubs and More
I am a terrible golfer. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy it, but I have no illusions about my abilities as a golfer or my prospects for improvement. This past summer, after having played golf maybe a dozen times every year since late elementary school, I sank my first par. It was simultaneously exciting and embarrassing (but mostly exciting). My current set of clubs is composed mainly of stainless steel club heads and, I think, stainless Continue reading
Titanium Investment Casting: Less Common, but Just as Important
Titanium is not your typical investment casting metal. The combination of its very high melting point and its high cost can make titanium less attractive than lighter, more malleable, less expensive metals. Aluminum, stainless steel, copper and nickel are more commonly investment cast than titanium. However, in certain ways, titanium is well-suited to Continue reading
How Precision Investment Casting Services Serve Industry
I once saw a video about the investment casting process, and I was struck by a few things as I was watching it. First, I was struck by the number of different phases involved in the process of investment casting products. The pattern making phases, the shell coating phases, the casting phase and the shell breaking phase each seem complicated enough without being combined together into one metalworking process. I was also struck by how such imprecise-looking shells could produce Continue reading
Copper: Made for Copper Investment Casting
My family used to make regular trips to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan each Memorial Day. First we would travel to Mackinac Island, and from that point we would head to our hotel in St. Ignace. One year, at some point during our trip, at a gift shop I bought a little plastic box filled with pure copper flakes. I still don’t know why this appealed to me. I don’t know where the box is now, and I have no desire to search for it. After all, that souvenir caused problems for me. When I returned to Continue reading