news

Think Bigger with investment castings

Investment castings have been pigeon holed for many years- a highly accurate but expensive method for casting small intricate items in a variety of materials, both high and low temperature. The extra expense in producing the investment casting often negates the need for post machining or surface preparation, making it an ideal choice for that tricky small part.

Due to the extremely high labour content involved in this process, and the constraints of the specialist machinery required, typically parts of 25kilos are pushing the boundaries of the process.

DGI have long established supply partnerships with a number of Chinese foundries and one in particular has the capacity and proven ability to produce much larger parts. Weights of up to 75 kilos and a metre plus in length can be achieved with good dimensional accuracy and the high quality surface finish that people expect from investment casting. Furthermore, there is virtually no restriction on materials offered; and because it’s produced in a low labour cost country the prices are extremely keen as well.

As with all parts, whether produced in our foundry or by one of our supply partners overseas, all the engineering and design are controlled from our plant in Manchester, parts go through our casting simulation and Cosmos stress packages and all manufacturing, inspection and packaging instructions are supplied by us. To add value, wherever possible we have parts fully finished by our supply partners who have in house facilities for precision machining (to ATEX standards), plating, assembly and polishing.

To give further peace of mind, all parts are supplied to us with chemical analysis and inspection reports and parts are inspected by us prior to being put into stock for shipment to you the customer.

So next time you have the larger parts on the drawing board, keep your options open and allow us to give you our measured opinion of the best process for the job.

Investment Casting >

Posted: Wednesday 30th April 2008