Lost Wax Casting, Precision Casting, Alloy Investment Casting

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FAQ of Lost Wax Casting and Investment Casting

Company profile

  • Enter your core business, main technologies and years of experience
    Our core business is investment casting, process and surface finish with over 30-year-experienece.
  • Export rate (% )
    40% for export and 60% for domestic
  • Number of employees per department (direct and indirect, production, quality, sales, R&D, purchasing and financial) and number of English speaking persons per department
    Production: 62
    Quality: 3
    Sales: 2 Speacking English: 2
    R&D: 2
  • Average volumes manfactured
    25-30 tons/monthly
  • Which stainless steel type do you cast?
    Types of alloy poured
    stainless steel, carbon steel, alloy steel, Monel etc
    304, 316, 316L,303, 410, 420J2, 431, 17-4PH, WCB, 8620, SCM440, O2, A2

Manufacturing capabilities - Equipment

  • Nb of furnaces and volume capacity
    2 furnces- each 100-120 Kg
  • Type of furnaces:
    H.F. INDUCTION FURNACE
  • Name of brand
    VIP
  • Melting hours
    10 hours
  • List your control equipments for chemical analysis
    Chemical composition equipment
  • List of equipments for injection/coating/casting
    Wax Injection Machine 2 SET, Dipping Tank 1 SET, Fluid Sand Tank 4 SET
    Heat Treatment Furnace 2 SET, Blasting Machine 8 SET, Grinder 3 SET
    Cutter 3 SET, Argon Welding 2 SET, Dewaxing Furnace 1 SET
    H.F. Induction Furnace 2 SET, CNC Machine 2 SET

Manufacturing capabilities - Machining

  • Indicate your machining internal capabilities
    2 sets of CNC machine with 4 axis
  • Available Capacity
    lathe, milling , others surface finish
  • Capacity of machines:
    CNC 16HR
    MC 8HR

Manufacturing capabilities - Surface treatment & other secondary operations

  • Heat treating done on site
    Solid Solution, Normalization, annealing, precipitation hardening
  • Heat treating done by vendor
    Quenching and Tempering, Carburization, Carbonitriding
  • How often is equipment calibrated?
    per year
  • Detail your internal capabilities for cold forming/straightening
    straightening
  • Indicate your internal capabilities
    Shot blasting/deburring/grinding
    Shot blasting/ deburring/ grinding
  • Surface Treatment / Coating
    electro-plating, electro-polishing, black oxide coating and baking varnish etc.
  • Brazing/welding
    Argon welding, electric welding

Inspection & test

  • List of inspection equipement
    caliper, 3D CMM, EM-2.5D System, Universal Tensile Tester, Chemical composition, Hardness Tester, Metallurgical Microscope, Surface Roughness Meter, Penetrate inspection, Magnetic particle inspection, Mold flow simulation software etc
  • Brand name of equipment used for analysis
    FISONS
  • Indicate whether you do leakage tests (Y/N)
    Y
  • Indicate your methods of porosity measurement
    X-ray and destructive test
  • Is there a Coordinate Measuring machine on site? Model number?
    Yes, CE-450
  • To what extent are inspections performed? ( first piece, in-process, final)
    first piece, in-process, final
  • How are non comforming parts handled?
    stock separately, scrap for melting
  • Metallography
    Microscope 50X~400X
  • CMM size
    450*450*250 m/m

Questions on investment casting/ precision casting/ lost wax casting

  • What are the investment castings used for?
    Lost-wax precision casting also has its own features and advantages that are different from traditional sand casting, forging, and mechanical processing, and is suitable for any material such as cast iron, cast steel, alloy steel, stainless steel, tool steel, aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy, titanium Alloys, copper alloys, beryllium copper alloys, superalloys, cobalt-based and nickel-based heat-resistant alloys, etc.
    Therefore, lost-wax castings have a wide range of applications and are flexible in mass production, including: gas turbines, steam turbines, aircraft parts, internal combustion engines, vehicle parts, boats & marine parts, medical equipment, golf heads, food machinery, printing machinery, paper machinery, compressors, valves, pumps, measuring instruments, sewing machines, weapons, business machines and other machine parts, etc.
  • What are the size limits of investment cast component?
    C&S had ever made the maximum casting was 300mm for each length, width and height, and the easy-to-make length is less than 300mm. The maximum weight of castings is about 50 kilograms. Castings are generally made under 10 kilograms, and castings over 30 kilograms are rare.
  • Are investment castings expensive?
    Due to the costs and labor with the molds, investment castings generally have higher costs than forged parts or sand casting and permanent mold casting methods. However, they make up for the higher cost through the reduction of machining achieved through as-cast near-net-shape tolerances.
  • What metals and alloys could be poured by investment casting at your foundry?
    Almost most of ferrous and nonferrous metal and alloys could be cast by investment casting process. But, at our lost wax casting foundry, we mainly cast the carbon steel, alloy steel, stainless steel and super duplex stainless steel.
  • Why is investment casting also called precision casting?
    The investment casting is also called precision casting because it has much better surface and higher accuracy than any other casting process, there will be less or even no need to make the machining processes. A certain extent, the investment casting could replace the rough machining process.
  • Why is lost wax casting called investment casting?
    The investment casting gets its name because the patterns ( wax replicas) is invested with the surrounded refractory materials during casting process. The “invested” here means being surrounded. The wax replicas should be invested (surrounded) by the refractory materials to withstand the high temperature of the flowing molten metals during casting.
  • Do you have any if foreign investment castings are acceptable for your application then we are not the correct foundry for you?
    We do not compete with China or Southeast Asia. All our investment castings are made in C&S, Taiwan. We do not import castings.
  • Please provide us the detailed information while sending inquiry.
    Here is the information we will need to quote:
    What material do you want part cast out of?

     

    Is the part to be heat treated? If so, is there a hardness requirement? Are there mechanical testing requirements?

     

    What lot quantities of investment castings would you like us to quote? Is this a one time job or a recurring job?
    Base on the customer’s demand, if there is no idea, we might request the minimum quantity for each furnace capacity.

     

    We need as much information about the part as possible. This is a new part? If it is an existing job, how is it currently being made? If it is currently being investment cast why are you looking for new foundry? Is to get better quality, delivery or price?

     

    If this is an existing part, does investment casting tooling currently exist for part. If so any tooling rework or modification will be at customer's expense.

     

    We need drawings of 2D and 3D or samples. The more information we receive the fewer questions we will have to ask before we can quote. Ideally we would like to have:

     

    3D CAD files. We would prefer SolidWorks files. If these are not available then this is the desired order.

     

    1. SolidWorks format

     

    2. STEP format

     

    3. X_T format

     

    4. IGES format

     

    5. STL format

     

    2D drawings. We need these for tolerances. We do make many rapid prototype parts without 2D drawings. But if tolerances are important 2D drawings are a necessity. Note if you only send us a 2D drawing and the dimensions and or tolerances are not legible we will not be able to quote.

     

    Samples if available. This is not a necessity, unless that is all you have, but they can be very helpful during our quoting process

     

    Unless critical dimensions are called out on 2D drawings we will need to know what dimensions are critical and what are not critical.