The Mold Cost of Investment Casting is So Low？

This article is divided into the following five main parts to introduce the mold of investment casting

I. Introduction to the application of investment casting molds

II. The determination of the casting system before making the mold

III. Manual vs. automatic molds

IV. Investment casting mold manufacturing considerations and optimization points

V. The starting price of investment casting molds

1. Introduction to the Application of Investment Casting Molds

There are four major processes in investment casting, wax making - shell making - casting - post-processing, after completing these four major processes to produce the castings, and the subsequent processing or surface treatment can be done according to the customer's requirements. These four major processes can be divided into more than twenty sub-processes. The specific processes are described in this article. "Process Flow and Production Cycle of Silica Sol Dewaxing Casting"

Link: Process Flow and Production Cycle of Silica Sol Dewaxing Casting

And we are going to introduce the molds for investment casting today, which are applied to the wax making process, that is, the molds for making wax patterns. The picture below. The molten steel does not directly go into the mold, the molten steel is not in contact with the molten steel. Therefore, the material and application difficulty of investment casting molds is relatively small, compared with injection molds, forging molds and powder metallurgy molds.

2. The Determination of the Casting System Before Making the Mold

Before developing and manufacturing the molds, the technical team needs to determine the design of the pouring system. Because the confirmation of the pouring system scheme directly affects the confirmation of the location of the pouring port, and also the confirmation of the corresponding wax bar of the product. If there are innovative changes in the structure of the wax bar, the casting factory also needs to develop the molds for the wax bar simultaneously.

These tasks must be confirmed before the mold development, otherwise there will be a situation of technical passivity and delivery during the sample development.

According to statistics, more than 90% of casting errors are usually caused by casting system design errors, and only 10% are caused by uncontrolled parameters during the design and production process. The use of casting simulation software allows many design errors to be detected in time.

This ensures that no major problems occur during the production of the casting and prevents the high cost of error casting. The so-called "trial and error" process is now a thing of the past in foundries. This saves a lot of time and money, while optimizing the casting process and the quality of the castings very efficiently.

A specific introductory article on simulated pouring can be found below. "Solutions to Shrinkage Porosity of Existing Products and New Products" 

Link: Solutions to Shrinkage Porosity of Existing Products and New Products

3. Manual Molds VS. Automatic Molds

Generally, our technical and sales team will specify manual and automatic molds and a few cavities out of one during the quotation process.

The following video is the manual mold one out of one

The video below is the automatic mold one out of two

Generally, we only offer manual tooling solution to customers in three cases: 1) products with structure too complex to open automatic tooling, 2) products with size too large to open automatic tooling, 3) products with small order quantity.

Except for the above three special cases, we generally only provide automatic tooling to our customers, because automatic tooling not only has a long life and produces product of stable quality and dimension, but also has high efficiency, which can significantly shorten the production lead time, thus significantly improving the quality of service to our customers.

4. Investment Casting Mold Manufacturing Considerations and Optimization Points

Here according to our 20 years experience in mold production, there are certain standards for mold production within the factory, and this article will give a few examples.

1. Mold cavity surface should be equipped with nylon rods, which can protect the cavity surface from bumping when opening and closing the mold, thus prolonging the mold life.

2. The mold should be nitride treated to improve the hardness of the mold, slow down the wear of the mold and improve the stability of the wax mold quality.

3. The slider is positioned with oblique guide pillar to reduce the number of extraction pins, improve work efficiency, reduce mold loss and prolong mold life.

4. The slider should be limited to avoid bumping between the slider and the table, reduce the mold loss, prolong the mold life, speed up the mold loading speed, and improve the production efficiency.

5. The Starting Price of Investment Casting Molds

Investment casting, manual mold fee from 800SUD (molds’ structural difficulty, 30g-1kg products)

Silicone Melt Casting, automatic mold fee from 1200 USD (molds’ structural difficulty, 30g-1kg products)

Generally, the life span of manual mould is 50,000 times and the life span of automatic mould is 500,000 times, so most customers will choose automatic molds when the mould costs are similar.

Because the molds of investment casting are applied to wax mold manufacturing, so it is much cheaper in cost compared with other industrial manufacturing molds, which is also one of the major advantages of investment casting that can help customers to develop new projects with relatively low development cost.

Ningbo BesserCasting is a factory with 20 years of casting experience, focusing on the production of silica-sol process of investment casting parts, can produce stainless steel, carbon steel, low carbon alloy steel and more than 100 kinds of material grades. BesserCasting is good at customization, to provide customers with proactive casting solutions. If you have any inquiry related to investment casting, please feel free to contact us.