Investment Castings

What is Investment Casting?

Ferralloy, Inc. provides high-quality investment casting for various industries and applications. Our industrial manufacturing process is based on lost-wax casting and builds on the oldest known metal-forming methods. These methods can be traced back to Ancient China and Egypt and have been used for over 5,500 years.

Investment casting is often used to manufacture the following parts and components:

• Pump & Valve Components
• Vehicle Components
• Turbocharger Impellers
• Machinery Components
• Parts with Complex Geometry
• Food & Beverage Grade Machinery Components
• Misc. Equipment Parts

The Investment Casting Process

Investment casting is a manufacturing process that involves pouring molten alloyed material into a ceramic mold containing a hollow cavity of the desired shape. As the material solidifies, it forms the casting, which is then broken away from the mold.

We implement the following steps when creating investment castings:

1. Engineering Review. The first step begins with a thorough customer evaluation of the Design for Manufacturing (DFM).
2. Mold Design/Build. Once the initial evaluation is complete, we precision-engineer a wax injection mold that can be used to produce wax patterns for the final part.
3. Wax Pattern Production. The wax injection mold is brought to the wax room for injection and assembly. This step helps us determine the necessary production capabilities.
4. Ceramic Mold Construction. We dip the wax tree into a ceramic slurry until it is completely enveloped in the material. The tree is then thoroughly coated in sand to create a shell that forms the first layer. The mold is then dried.
5. De-Waxing. The shell containing the wax pattern is placed into an autoclave that uses steam heat and extremely high pressure to remove the wax.
6. Foundry & Pouring. The mold is placed into a high-temperature oven set to approximately 1000 C (1832 F) for curing and to prepare it for accepting molten metal.
7. Shell & Casting Removal. Once the metal has cooled, the ceramic mold shell is broken away. At this point, the casting(s) can be removed from the metal tree.
8. Finishing. The part’s gate is often removed by machining or grinding after manufacturing. Investment castings utilize a ceramic mold that can produce a much smoother surface (averaging a 125 RA surface finish).

Benefits of Investment Casting vs. Other Methods

When prepared with care and skill, the investment casting process can produce extremely accurate reproductions of the original pattern. Attaining pattern accuracy depends on the type of manufacturing process used, with a range of techniques available to improve the pattern’s precision.

Investment castings offer the following benefits compared to other methods, including:

• Economical tooling options
• Elimination of machining in many cases
• Smoother finish
• Tighter tolerances
• Ability to cast complex geometries
• Wide variety of materials

Interested in High-Quality Investment Castings?

Ferralloy Inc. is equipped to process orders of any size with ease. We can hold component inventory on blanket orders to satisfy your delivery needs and offer deep experience in a diverse range of industries.

Contact us to learn more about investment castings and how the manufacturing process can meet the demands of your next project.

By using the investment castings process, we can reduce your component weight and, in some cases, eliminate costly machining.

Advantages of Investment Castings

Investment casting delivers a high degree of design flexibility, which allows us to cast complex designs with intricate features, such as thru-holes, slots, and detailed profiles. We work with a wide range of ferrous and non-ferrous alloys, including exotic and heat-resistant materials.

Custom-Built to Your Specifications

We can eliminate secondary machining steps to help you better manage your production costs by supplying you with components incorporating precise dimensions and fine details. When machining of certain features is required, we can provide finish machining services and deliver to you a complete, turnkey component.

Interested in High-Quality Investment Castings?

We are equipped to process low and high-volume orders, and we can hold component inventory on blanket orders to satisfy any just-in-time delivery schedule. With experience in a diverse range of industries, we can meet the challenges of virtually any project.