Investment Casting Advantages

While there are many methods of metal-forming, investment casting is unique because it allows you to obtain highly complex shapes, much like high pressure die casting, but in both ferrous and non-ferrous materials.

Benefits of investment casting compared to other metal-forming processes:

1、Hard Tooling has a much longer life-span than other casting processes, as the wax that is injected is not very abrasive.

2、 Can produce complicated shapes that would very difficult or impossible with other casting methods.

3、 Better surface finish generally means a reduced need for secondary machine processes.

4、 The hardness and grain structure of the refractory materials used allows for superior surface qualities.

5、Per-unit costs decrease with large volume, if automation can be utilized to reduce labor.

6、 achieve high tolerances as well as undercuts that are not easily formed in high pressure die castings.

7、Castings produced by investment casting are not limited by the types of alloys, especially for alloys that are difficult to cut or forge, which can show its superiority. However, investment casting production also has some shortcomings, mainly due to the large number of processes, long production cycles, complex technological processes, and many factors affecting the quality of castings, which must be strictly controlled to stabilize production.

8、Compared with other casting methods, the remarkable feature of investment casting is the use of meltable molds to make the shell. One investment mold is consumed every time a shell is manufactured. The necessary prerequisite for obtaining high-quality castings with high dimensional accuracy and low surface roughness values is an investment mold with high dimensional accuracy and low surface roughness values. Therefore, the performance of the molding material (referred to as the mold material), the quality of the molding (the pattern used to press the investment) and the molding process will directly affect the quality of the investment casting.