The investment casting process provides a very high quality of casting with exceptional surface finish. Because of this, stainless steel castings can be mechanically polished to create a finish which is virtually identical to a chrome plated finish.
To achieve the required base casting it’s essential that the process control is good and DGI use a casting simulation package to ensure they produce the very best investment castings which are free from porosity and surface defects. Once polished, even if the parts become damaged, they are relatively easily recovered with mechanical polishing. If plated, they would have to be stripped first, reworked and then re plated, which often makes it uneconomic and results in expensive scrap.
The process of mechanical, mirror polishing of investment castings is often used for furniture or decorative items including beer dispense pumps.

Labels: finishes, investment casting

Because the investment casting process can achieve such high accuracy and an extremely good surface finish, fine detail can be incorporated into the design at no additional cost.
With traditional methods of manufacture; fabrications, machined items, even sand and die casting, the more detail you add the more expensive the part becomes.
Investment casting tooling is normally manually assembled and as such a greater complexity is possible. This means that you can incorporate part numbers, company logos and traceability information into the investment casting tooling and even have change pieces within the tooling to facilitate similar but different parts.
Investment castings offer a viable alternative, especially when features can be cast in place that would ordinarily have to be added separately.

Labels: investment casting, investment castings, sand casting

World steel prices continue to rise with the cost of iron ore pushing steel prices to record levels. Whilst this is a global problem, component costs can be managed by utilising lower cost labour countries such as China. DGI have a wealth of knowledge and expertise in producing, sourcing and managing investment casting products from China.

Labels: investment casting

There is serious talk about a viable rail link between China and Germany. The track exists but until now the bureaucracy and border crossing issues negated any benefit from the conventional sea freight option.
Due to the massive increase of imports from China, the capacities of shipping and ports is reaching overload and this has brought the matter to a head.
A trial has recently been run with a container train which took only 18 days; compared to the 4 weeks or more by sea. DGI would welcome any improvement in delivery times for its casting products from China.

Internal labour costs continue to increase in the UK and many companies are looking to reduce costs by sub contracting simple assembly and packaging, and reducing their work force and overheads accordingly. Automation has been the other option to reduce the labour content but with the current credit crunch, FD's across the land are tightening the purse strings.
There is another simple and low cost option and that is to utilise our low cost sourcing partners, where the parts can be investment cast through the lost wax process, machined, plated and assembled under one roof- and they can be individually packed with part reference information as required.

Labels: investment casting, investment castings, lost wax process

Titanium has many excellent characteristics with strength similar to steel and weight benefits that make it ideal for the lost wax process, casting components for high tech applications. But it also has extremely good corrosion resistance properties which opens it up for off shore applications where components are in direct contact with salt water for prolonged periods of time.

Labels: lost wax process

Duplex StSt is primarily used in chemical plants and piping applications, the duplex stainless steels are developing rapidly today and have a microstructure of approximately equal amounts of ferrite and austenite. Duplex stainless steels typically contain approximately 22-25% chromium and 5% nickel with molybdenum and nitrogen. Although duplex and some austenitics do have similar alloying elements, duplexes have higher yield strength and greater stress corrosion cracking resistance to chloride than austenitic stainless steels.

The foundry industry has long been considered a high polluting and dirty industry. The nature of the process, the energy consumption and the process by-products all contribute to the picture and have been unchanged for many years.
As a responsible company and employer, Dean Group International have taken a pro active stance and are making huge strides to clean up the image of the business.
Commercial Director Carol Dean says "investment casting is a dirty business and it's very easy to fall into this trap and just accept it. But you can improve and change people's perceptions. We encourage everyone to take responsibility for their own areas, to keep the place clean and tidy and it hits home when visitors comment on the general cleanliness of the place. The philosophy starts at the shop floor and resonates through the business, form a paperless (or as close at it can be) office to recycling and reducing and controlling our emissions. There's a lot of talk out carbon footprints these days, this industry uses a lot of energy so we're doing our best to compensate for this in other ways."
In recognition of our efforts, DGI have just received a GOLD award from Salford City council for "Protecting and Improving Our Environment"

Labels: environmental issues

DGI’s innovative new process for fabrication and sand casting is set to revolutionise the traditional UK fabrication and sand casting markets.
DGI’s commercial grade investment casting method offers many of the advantages of conventional investment casting but with far lower costs.
The new process has been used to great advantage within the commercial vehicle industry and is based on the investment casting or lost wax process, a relatively expensive but highly accurate form of casting parts in steel, iron or stainless steel and - parts that have been traditionally produced by cutting up sheet or plate steel to various sizes which are then fixtured and welded together can now be produced at costs similar to those of sand casting and the end product is free from weld splatter, sharp edges and burrs.
Until now, the options were either to fabricate or produce a low cost sand casting which would generally need machining to bring it in line with fit and function requirements. The new commercial grade investment casting process allows for complex shapes to be produced without the need for draft angles of tapers. Undercuts, internal pockets and thin sections are all possible without affecting the piece part price and the weight range is large - from 100 grams to 150 kilos – with castings of any size being possible.
Commercial grade IC is more accurate than sand casting and has a superior surface finish so that post machining is reduced. Because the part is cast, there is no waste material, there are fewer design constraints and design changes can usually be incorporated into the tooling at relatively low cost.
Each new casting design goes through DGI’s bespoke casting simulation package combined with their 3D CAD models and cosmos stress simulation to ensure that the best possible casting is achieved with added features such as weight relief, part numbers and company logos designed into the casting at no extra cost. The integrity of the part is assured and, because there is no welding involved, there is no potential for process variation from poor quality welds.
DGI is a family owned manufacturing and sourcing company with 35 years of knowledge and experience of servicing all types of industries including automotive, agricultural, industrial, hydraulic, construction, switchgear, transport, valves, lift equipment, architectural markets, defence, medical, electronics, ironmongery, leisure, transport, mechanical equipment and general engineering.
For more information on the ground-breaking new commercial grade investment casting, visit http://www.deangroup-int.co.uk/ or call 0161 775 1633

Labels: investment casting, lost wax process, sand casting