Investment Casting Parts
China Investment Casting Parts Manufacturers Factory Suppliers
We specialize in producing all kinds of Investment Casting Parts products, mainly Silica Sol Casting Parts, Water Glass Casting Parts, High Alloy Steel Castings, Acid-proof Steel Castings, Mechanical Structural Castings, Alloy Steel Structure Castings, Cast Dredge Teeth, Ground Engaging Tools, Construction Machinery Parts, etc.
HANRUI STEEL CUSTOMIZATION was established in 2009, boasting over 10 years of manufacturing experience, can provide customers with perfect solutions.
Our market is mainly concentrated in countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, Finland, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sweden, etc. We have established long-term cooperative relationships with customers around the world.
Company Advantages
Well-Experienced
HANRUI STEEL CUSTOMIZATION was established in 2009, boasting over 10 years of manufacturing experience. With a dedicated team casting engineers, and mechanical designers, we are committed to offering solutions to the steel accessory challenges faced across various industries.
Large Scale
With shares in two investment casting bases, one sand casting base, and two forging bases, we offer comprehensive one-stop services to our customers. From initial design and development to the delivery of flawless steel parts, we ensure a seamless and efficient process.
Advanced Production Equipment
We are a full-service company providing complete design, R&D, production and sales services. Our production workshop is equipped with the most advanced equipment. Innovation, powerful technology, and expertise make our equipment highly automated with various parameters that can be adjusted to meet the needs of most applications in the industry.
24-hour Online Customer Service
We have an experienced and professional customer support team to provide flexible service to customers around the world. Our customer service is available online 24 hours a day. After receiving the service information or feedback from the customer, we will reply and address the feedback in the shortest time.
Global Sales Network
Our market is mainly concentrated in countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, Finland, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sweden, etc. We have established long-term cooperative relationships with customers around the world. In addition, we also provide OEM/ODM manufacturing services to many customers.
Customized Services
We welcome product customization, and our team is capable of developing new products or providing technical solutions tailored to customer requirements. lf you have any special request, pls send us the details.
Introduction to Investment Casting Parts
Investment casting, also known as precision casting or lost-wax casting, is a manufacturing process in which a wax pattern is used to shape a disposable ceramic mold. A wax pattern is made in the exact shape of the item to be cast. This pattern is coated with a refractory ceramic material. Once the ceramic material is hardened, it is turned upside-down and heated until the wax melts and drains out. The hardened ceramic shell becomes an expendable investment mold. Molten metal is poured into the mold and is left to cool. The metal casting is then broken from of the spent mold.
These process qualities can provide net shape or near-net shape castings, which provide customers with significant cost savings in material, labor, and machining. It can make use of most common metals, including aluminum, bronze, magnesium, carbon steel, and stainless steel. Parts manufactured with investment casting include turbine blades, medical equipment, firearm components, gears, jewelry, golf club heads, and many other machine components with complex geometry.
Advantages of Investment Casting Parts
Size Range
Although most investment castings are small, the investment process can produce castings weighing more than 1,000 pounds. This capability is limited to a relatively small number of investment casters and requires special expertise in handling. Most cast parts fall in the ounces to a 20-pound range.
Versatile And Intricate Shapes
Investment casting provides consistent and repetitive close tolerances along with intricate passages and contours. Many of these configurations are impossible to produce. For example, where machine tools cannot reach. Achieving net-shape or near-net-shape cast components can dramatically reduce post-cast processing costs.
Investment casting is a good alternative to weldments or fabricating. Many components can be combined into a single casting. The more that are combined, the better the manufacturing efficiency. Converting multi-piece components to a single investment casting typically delivers more dimensional accuracy and reduced part complexity.
Accurate And Smooth Surfaces
The ceramic shell used is built around smooth patterns produced by injecting wax into a polished aluminum die. A 125 micro finish is standard, and even finer finishes are not uncommon.
Investment castings contain no parting line because only one mold is used rather than two half molds (such as in the case of sand casting). Standards for surface blemishes and cosmetics are discussed and agreed upon with the customer based on the function.
Dimensional Accuracy
Typically, "standard"investment tolerances are +/-0.010"for the first inch and +/- 0.004"for each succeeding inch.
Types of Investment Casting Parts
Stainless Steel Castings
Stainless steel casting is a manufacturing process that involves pouring molten stainless steel into a mold to create a specific shape. It's also known as stainless steel investment casting or lost wax casting.
Stainless steel casting is used to produce intricate and durable metal components with smooth finishing, unique geometric shapes, and tight tolerances. Industries that use cast stainless steel include marine, automotive, food processing equipment, and automotive manufacturing.
High Alloy Steel Castings
High alloy steel castings is a type of steel that contains more than 8% alloying elements by weight, other than carbon and iron. High-alloy steel castings is designed to produce specific properties such as wear resistance, heat resistance, or corrosion resistance.
High Alloy Steel Castings are more resistant to wear and tear than carbon steel. They can also be heat-treated to increase their strength and hardness, making them even more durable.
Low Alloy Steel Castings
Low Alloy Steel Castings is a type of steel that has low percentages of alloying elements like chromium and nickel. It is generally considered to comprise plain carbon steels and steels with a total alloying content of up to 12%.
Low Alloy Steel Castings behave similarly to normal carbon steel, but with higher hardenability. It contains specified amounts of chromium, nickel or molybdenum to the carbon to enhance harden-ability and toughness.
Low alloy steel castings are used in many industries and applications. They are economical, accessible in many grades, and can be heat-treated to improve their properties.
Acid-proof Steel Castings
Acid-proof Steel Castings is a type of stainless steel that has greater resistance to corrosion. It's made by adding 2–3% molybdenum to steel. The steel's protective properties come from a chromium oxide film. The higher the chromium content, the better the corrosion resistance.
Acid-proof Steel Castings is used in industrial settings where conditions are harsher, like pharmaceutical plants. It's also used in chemical processing, mining, and power generation.
The applications of investment castings are limitless. However, the aerospace, power generation, firearm, automotive, military, commercial, food service, gas and oil, and energy industries use these metal components the most. For example, the firearms industry turns to cast parts for firearm receivers, triggers, hammers, and other precision parts. Investment castings are even used by beverage industry equipment manufacturers and international pressure relief valve manufacturers in the oil and gas industry. As a result, it's safe to say that regardless of your industry, if your business can benefit from the advantages of investment cast parts and components, they might be the perfect metal option for any and all of your projects.
Production method of Investment Casting Parts
The investment casting parts process consists of several steps: metal die construction, wax pattern production, ceramic mold creation, pouring, solidification, shakeout, and cleanup.
Metal die construction
The wax pattern and ceramic mold are destroyed during the investment casting process, so each casting requires a new wax pattern. Unless investment casting is being used to produce a very small volume (as is common for artistic work or original jewelry), a mold or die from which to manufacture the wax patterns is needed.
The size of the master die must be carefully calculated; it must take into consideration expected shrinkage of the wax pattern, the expected shrinkage of the ceramic material invested over the wax pattern, and the expected shrinkage of the metal casting itself.
Wax pattern production
The number of wax patterns always equals the number of castings to be produced; each individual casting requires a new wax pattern.
Hot wax is injected into the mold or die and allowed to solidify. Cores may be needed to form any internal features. The resulting wax pattern is an exact replica of the part to be produced. The method is similar to die-casting, but with wax used instead of molten metal.
Mold creation
A gating system (sprue, runner bars, and risers) is attached to the wax mold. For smaller castings, several wax patterns are attached to a central wax gating system to form a tree-like assembly. A pouring cup, typically attached to the end of the runner bars, serves to introduce molten metal into the mold.
The assembled "pattern tree"is dipped into a slurry of fine-grained silica. It is dipped repeatedly, being coated with progressively more refractory slurry with each dip. Once the refractory coating reaches the desired thickness, it is allowed to dry and harden; the dried coating forms a ceramic shell around the patterns and gating system.
The thickness of the ceramic shell depends of the size and weight of the part being cast, and the pouring temperature of the metal being cast. The average wall thickness is approximately 0.375 in. (9.525 mm). The hardened ceramic mold is turned upside down, placed in an oven, and heated until the wax melts and drains away. The result is a hollow ceramic shell.
Pouring
The ceramic mold is heated to around 1000 – 2000°F (550 – 1100°C). The heating process further strengths the mold, eliminates any leftover wax or contaminants, and evaporates water from the mold material.
Molten metal is poured into the mold while it is still hot – liquid metal flows into the pouring cup, through the central gating system, and into each mold cavity on the tree. The pre-heated mold allows the metal to flow easily through thin, detailed sections. It also creates a casting with improved dimensional accuracy, as the mold and casting will cool and shrink together.
Cooling
After the mold has been poured, the metal cools and solidifies. The time it takes for a mold to cool into a solid state depends on the material that was cast and the thickness of the casting being made.
Shakeout
Once the casting solidifies, the ceramic molds break down, and the casting can be removed. The ceramic mold is typically broken up manually or by water jets. Once removed, the individual castings are separated from their gating system tree using manual impact, sawing, cutting, burning, or by cold breaking with liquid nitrogen.
Finishing
Finishing operations such as grinding or sandblasting are commonly employed to smooth the part at the gates and remove imperfections. Depending on the metal that the casting was poured from, heat treating may be employed harden the final part.
Tooling Cost
For low quantity requirements, it may be more expensive than other methods if permanent tooling is pursued. For those applications, SLA or printed patterns may be a cost-effective alternative (even for a quantity of one).
Initial costs are another key factor when determining whether investment casting brings the greatest value. The investment cast tool usually consists of multiple parts fitted together to produce the complex components. This "front end" cost is not insignificant but can be easily offset by the lack of subsequent machining and/or fabrication.
Size Limitations
It's possible to create investment castings in a range of sizes. There is an upper limit on that range, which is less than other shaped technologies like sand casting.
Very Small Structures
Investment casting is an excellent choice for thin-walled applications, but very small internal shapes that use cores can present challenges. Holes typically cannot be smaller than 1/16" (1.6mm) or deeper than 1.5 times in diameter.
Timing
The multi-step investment casting process is more time consuming than other processes. The processing time can be shorter than other alternatives.
Our Factory
We have a fully automatic CNC production line, and are committed to providing customers with the best products and services.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What Materials can be Investment Cast?
Q: What is Investment Casting Used For?
Q: What are the benefits of Investment Casting?
Mold design versatility
Increased complex design capabilities
Provides for a smoother surface (125 RMS)
Highly accurate, repeatable-designs
Time & cost savings versus fabrication and machining
Produces numerous types of products
Numerous types of metal alloys can be used
Q: Why Is Investment Casting Also Called the Lost Wax Process?
Q: How Does Investment Casting Differ From Other Types of Casting?
Precision and extent of detail differ greatly between casting methods. Die casting is high precision, although gravity (poured) die casting is less precise than the various forms of pressure die casting. Pressure die casting facilitates compensation for shrinkage, which retains/reflects the shape and dimensions of the cavity more faithfully in the cast part. Pressure die-cast parts can maintain very high levels of detail, so long as that detail can be extracted from the tool features. Sand casting is of moderate precision because the process does not lend itself to forming very accurate and repeatable cavities. It can maintain only relatively thick sections and coarse details. Investment casting is renowned for its combination of precision and fine detail while avoiding the major up-front costs of die casting.
Q: How Long Does It Take Investment Casting Parts To Finish?
Q: When Should You Consider Investment Casting?
Q: How Accurate Is Investment Casting Parts?
Q: What Is the Primary Purpose of Investment Casting?
Q: What Are the Disadvantages of Investment Casting Parts?
Non-automated process costs are higher than for sand casting.
Volume component costs are always higher than for die casting.
The many steps in the process leave wide scope for error.
The size and weight of one-piece castings are much more limited than for sand casting.
The per-component cost is higher than for sand casting at the one-off level, with the differential eroding quickly with increased automation and volume of parts.
Material limitations are not significant but must be taken into account.
Q: Is Investment Casting Parts Expensive?
If cast parts would otherwise be produced by complex assemblies, investment casting is cost-effective.
If cast parts have geometries that cannot otherwise be made in a one-stage, net-shape process, investment casting is the only logical choice.
When quality and precision are more critical than cost, the process is widely applied for good commercial reasons.
Q: What are the advantages of Low Alloy Steel Castings?
Versatile mechanical properties: Low Alloy Steel Castings can meet the strength requirements for many applications.
Good weldability: Low Alloy Steel Castings is appealing for applications that have welded assemblies and fabrications.
Q: What is the process flow of Water Glass Casting Parts?
Wax injection: Melted wax is injected into a mold to create a wax pattern of the casting.
Wax assembly: Once the wax patterns have cooled and settled, they are mounted onto a sprue or tree.
Shell formation: Sodium silicate is added to sand to form a ceramic slurry that is then used to produce the ceramic shell mold.
Firing: The shell is fired at a high temperature to sinter the ceramic elements together to form a high strength shell.
Shell preparation: The shell is pre-heated in the oven before casting.
Casting: The metal is poured into the shell, and the shell may need to be hammered to release the casting.
Sprinue removal: The sprue is then removed and recycled.