Investment Casting Precision Casting Benefits

What is Precision Casting? and Precision Casting Benefits

Precision casting, also called investment casting, is a lost wax casting process widely used for producing ferrous and nonferrous metal parts. Unlike other casting processes, precision casting produces net shape parts with excellent surface finish and dimensional accuracy. This manufacturing process is ideal for applications that have relatively low production quantities (100 to 10,000 pieces) or rapidly changing product designs.

Precision casting as a representative of the foundry industry in the field of high technology, precision casting must play its exemplary role and take the lead.

But precision casting to play these two roles is the premise of a strong self, so China’s precision casting should be given priority to the development of up, development needs to established guidelines and development goals, the development of precision casting industry goals are the following.

First, from the rough and polluted to green intensive change, the quality, variety, and quantity of products and the world’s advanced level, the proportion of high-quality materials increased rapidly, the entire precision casting plant production efficiency, economic benefits multiplied; environmental pollution is effectively managed, the initial construction and environmental coordination of China’s foundry materials industry system.

Second, can continue to send professionals to enterprises, and constantly develop new varieties of high-quality, high-grade casting materials to meet the growing need for casting materials, while gradually increasing the efforts of technology exports.

Third, the elimination of a number of low technical levels, poor product quality, serious pollution, economic benefits of small precision casting plants, and the formation of a relative concentration of “small giant” and “star enterprises” to achieve “specialization, scale “production.

With precision casting, we can cast nearly 200 alloys. These metals range from ferrous—stainless steel, tool steel, carbon steel and ductile iron—to non-ferrous—aluminum, copper and brass. When cast in vacuum, super alloys are also available. The only process that matches this breadth of materials is machining, but it cannot produce the complex geometries that precision casting can deliver.

Since precision casting uses expendable patterns and ceramic shells, it is excellent for complex and detailed part designs. The process manufactures intricate parts that are difficult, if not impossible, to machine, forge or cast. Examples include internal passages and ports in a valve body, curved vanes of an impeller and internal cooling channels in a turbine blade. The critical barrier in prototype development and short-run production is the time and cost for injection molds. Each precision casting requires one wax pattern, and these patterns are injection molded. As design complexity rises, the tooling often becomes too costly and too time consuming to make prototyping and low-volume production practical.

In particular, to emerge one or two well-known enterprises in the world can compete with the backbone of the enterprise, their high level of technology, sophisticated technology, and equipment, strong capital, and advanced management level, can continue to provide the market with high-grade, high-quality casting material products, high market share.

If the precision casting industry can achieve the above development goals, and grow on its own, then the precision casting industry will be able to play its pioneering role in the foundry industry and leading role in driving the development of the foundry industry.

Precision Casting vs Sand Casting

Sand casting is a casting process working by creating a cavity for casting by sand, and the sand shell will produce a rough shape. Normally the tolerances of sand casting is CT8-CT9, and the surface finish is around Ra250. So for sand cast products, the rough surface will well quire more machining operations than investment castings.

Precision casting creates desired shapes by a ceramic shell and can produce a much better surface finish product. We can meet a tight tolerance CT5-6 as precisely as possible, thus reducing net shape products and likely avoiding further machining.

Precision Casting vs Machining

For some easy products with simple shapes, we may choose either precision casting or machining. Machining is the process that machining a part into final dimensions from a bar directly. This will cause a large waste of raw material, which will imperceptibly add to the production cost. Besides, if the quantity is large, the single production will longer the production time, which will delay the lead time.

Precision Casting makes a product to be costly in further machining. CFS foundry has both a casting workshop as well a machining shop. We can supply machined precision castings at the best price, allowing our customers to receive well-performed products that can be put into the application directly.

Precision Casting vs Precision Forging

Precision forging is the metal forming process that presses hot or cold metal bars into shapes directly. To withstand high pressure, there is a high requirement on the material of forging dies. The commonly used material for forging dies is tool die, whose cost is quite high. The high-cost tooling cost makes the precision forging process not competitive as precision casting. Also, precision forging has a district control on the shapes of products.

By comparison, precision casting requires less tooling cost and has no limitation on the dimensions of products. This makes our company available for all metal products.

Precision Casting vs Metal Fabrication

Metal fabrication is the process of cutting and bending metal plates into different shapes and thicknesses, and welding them together to form a product. This will cost more labor cost and production time.

Precision Casting can greatly reduce production time by attaching multiple wax models to a gate or system.

Manufacturing of Precision Castings

Precision castings are made in our lost wax investment casting method. The production process of precision castings includes injecting wax into patterns to form a wax model, building a tree assembling by sticking each wax model, creating a ceramic shell layer, pouring metal liquid into a sprue gate, and building a perfect shape like the wax pattern. Mostly, precision casting is the only solution for newly designed parts for its high accuracy, free dimensions, smooth surface, and complex shapes. And precision casting is economically manufactured for a low pattern cost.

Why Precision Casting from Hengke Metal?

Hengke Metal is your reliable supplier for your precision cast parts. Precision castings from our investment casting foundry will be the highest quality castings serving in your market. Our lost wax casting process provides a large freedom in both design and material choice for your desired products.

What’s more, our engineering department will give you a complete casting proposal about product design, material choice, machining details, etc for your reference. Our business core is to provide quality precision castings with high working performance.