Aluminum, copper, and stainless steel are among the most commonly used metals; almost any castable metal may be used including gold, titanium, and brass. Due to the smooth surface of the wax pattern that is used to create a ceramic mold, the resulting parts have a very fine finish that requires little machining. Read More…
Leading Manufacturers
Ferralloy Inc.
Cleveland, OH | 440-250-1900For over 30 years, we have provided metal forged products for a wide variety of industries, including the aerospace, military, food service, medical, and automotive industries. Our customers know they can trust our forgings for quality and affordability. We will never try to make you pay more than you should for our products. Contact us by phone or email to find out more!
Rimer Enterprises, Inc.
Waterville, OH | 419-878-8156Since 1944 we have been driven to remain a cut above the competition in investment castings and everything we do. We have our own tooling shop filled with state-of-the-art testing machines. We ensure perfect results every time. It is our goal to establish lifelong relationships with our customers that benefit us both. Contact us for more info today!
Impro Industries USA, Inc.
Diamond Bar, CA | 877-484-6776We provide investment castings, plus sand, permanent mold, and low-pressure castings. We have manufactured castings as large as 200 pounds, 24" diameter or length. Alloys used: alloy steel, aluminum, brass, bronze, carbon steel, copper, ductile iron, gray iron, high-temperature alloys and stainless steel.
Pennsylvania Precision Cast Parts, Inc.
Lebanon, PA | 717-273-3338People seek us when they want steel investment castings. We produce parts weighing mere ounces up to 200 pounds. Customers' investment castings are done in exotic alloys, carbon steels and stainless steels. We've produced for the food processing, military and power generation industries.
Intercast
McAllen, TX | 956-688-6406To satisfy your needs in ferrous investment castings, you can rely on our ISO 9001:2008 certified facility. At Intercast, we can cast sizes ranging from ounces to 65 pounds and lead times are weeks, not months. Simple operations such as drilling and tapping can be done in house and machining sources are done in the US and Mexico. Contact us today for world-class investment castings.
Wax Casting - Rimer Enterprises, Inc.Wax casting is effective at producing complex and detailed parts that other manufacturing methods cannot. There are no seams, flashes, or parting lines because the part is made as one whole piece. Because a wax model is created in the exact size and shape as the part, wax casting provides a highly accurate part. Castings can be fractions of an inch thick or weigh hundreds of pounds; most parts are around 15 pounds or less.
Wax Casting - Rimer Enterprises, Inc.Wax casting is a traditional metal part manufacturing process that has been used for jewelry making for hundreds of years. It is finding modern uses in a wide variety of applications including dental and medical tools, engines, couplings, fittings, pipes, propellers, and in aerospace, automotive, dental, medical, electrical, construction, mining, food processing, telecommunication, plumbing, military, sports, and other industries.
Wax casting relies heavily on wax and its properties, though the actual wax is not necessarily pure; it may contain plastic or other substances. The wax can be carved by hand or machine but may also be produced through injection molding where hot wax is poured into a metal mold. Items such as preexisting patterns made from other materials may be covered in wax that is carefully removed when hardened then reattached.
When the wax model is ready, it is attached to a wax sprue using a heated metal tool. Depending on the size and shape of the part, several hundred patterns may be attached to the same sprue resulting in an assembly called a tree which is dipped in ceramic slurry called the investment. It is dipped multiple times in mixtures that are increasingly coarse until the investment shell is thick enough. Another method is to place the tree in a flask and pour investment into the container until the tree is completely covered.
Once the investment has hardened, the tree is inverted and placed in an oven or furnace. It is exposed to high temperatures during the burnout stage when the wax melts and runs out; all residual moisture is baked off. When removed from the oven, a liquid metal at very high temperatures is poured into the hollow shell. The metal cools within minutes and the shell can be removed, exposing the part within.