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Lost Wax Investment CastingSteel Investment Castings - Lost Wax Castings - All Popular Metal Casting Alloys |
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Lost wax investment casting is the ancient art of jewelry making that is now a billion dollar industry, finding applications in almost every field imaginable. The flexibility to cast finely-detailed mechanical shapes, something not possible by other metal-casting methods, makes lost wax casting or investment casting the most desirable. Lost wax casting is used for major applications requiring extreme accuracy, thin-wall capability and fine details. A reduced setting time is also a factor that makes lost wax investment casting the choice for a wide range of applications. Egyptians used this technique some 4000 years ago to produce gold jewelry. From that application comes the term "investment casting". Centuries later lost wax investment casting found applications in airplanes during the Second World War, and after the war the same process was applied to civilian aircraft. | |||||||||
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Obtaining the Desired Properties The process includes applying slurry to the pre-designed wax model. The slurry forms the shell of the casting and once the shell is set, the wax is melted away; hence the name "lost wax casting". The lost wax leaves a cavity, which becomes the mold for the casting process. The aluminum alloy, or any molten metal, is poured into the cavity. The setting time can be adjusted to obtain the desired mechanical properties from the casting. Once the setting is complete the shell is broken away and the finely designed casting is ready for use. Lost wax investment casting offers superior design flexibility, allows fine details and ensures the finished shape. The need of machining, heating or grooving is reduced or even eliminated. It supports the use of a wide variety of alloys and is also very economical as machining, fabrication and welding are often not even necessary. The material properties can be manipulated by controlling the setting time. This reduces labor costs and production times while creating a precision-designed or engineered part in a single process. A recent trend in lost wax investment casting is the use of rapid prototyping, which considerably reduces the time of the whole process. | |||||||||
For more information about Lost Wax Investment Casting |
Lost Wax Investment Casting Has Many Applications Although lost wax investment casting can be used to produce jewelry and multiple replicas of sculptures, the main application is in the automobile industry. Engine parts produced by this method have a smooth surface. The valves, gears and arms produced with this method need very few finishing touches. Lost wax investment casting also finds applications in the fields of computer peripherals, electrical equipment, medical and surgical equipment, military engineering and operations, jet engines, printing presses, textile machinery, and sports equipment just to name a few. Aluminum alloys form the widely used non-ferrous lost wax investment casting. Aluminum alloys such as 208.0, 295.0, 308.0, 355.0, 356.0, 443.0, 514.0, 535.0 and 712.0 are the alloys most often used for investment casting. The permeability of aluminum, very similar to gold, gives the flexibility to produce ultra-light, extremely detailed parts for a variety of applications ranging from sports equipment to rocket parts. |
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| PO Box 95 · 550 County Highway G · Wild Rose, WI 54984 · Phone: 888-263-3344 |
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