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Stainless Steels are the best materials when you want your components to be corrosion-resistant, aesthetic surface finish and long lasting. And for the same reasons Stainless steel investment casting is the preferred casting process to manufacture the components which are used by food processing, medical, mining, and general engineering industries. The Investment Casting process was first used 5500 years ago and since then has evolved to what it is today. Investment Casted components are used globally in a variety of industries. Germans call it Feinguss, Italians call it Microfusione and it is also called precision casting.

Details you would want to know about steel investment casting.

Before you start any project and choose steel casting for it, here are a few questions answered. If there are still any questions, please feel free to contact us on details given at the end of the post.

What are the advantages of the steel investment casting process?

There are many advantages to choosing a stainless steel investment casting process. First of all stainless steel is a corrosion resistant material, so it adds to the life value of the component. It has excellent precision tolerance which other metals don’t have. And third is that you can achieve superior surface finish through the process.

What grade of steel is best for my industry?

300 series grade steel has good corrosion resistance and softer material. This grade of steel is best for food processing and medical industries. 304, 304L, 316, 316L are 300 series of stainless steel grades.

400 series steel has high strength quality but rigid nature so can be difficult to bend. So, this grade of steel can be used for making general engineering parts or machine tools. 410 and 416 are both 400 series steel grade.

What components or machine parts can be manufactured through the steel investment casting process?

   ● Valve bodies including gate valve castings, ball valve castings, butterfly valve castings, globe valve castings, triple eccentric valve castings, knife gate valve       castings, pressure relief valve castings

   ● Pump castings like centrifugal pump casing, closed & open impellers, lobe pump bearing housings, lobe pump rotor housing, split case pump housing

   ● Investment Castings for heavy equipments like Hydraulic cylinder castings

   ● Investment Castings for measurement instruments like flow meter bodies, pressure transmitter housing & cover

What is the general steel investment casting process?

Steel or any other investment casting follow following process:

   1.   Tool Making

   2.   Wax Injection

   3.   Pattern Assembly

   4.   Shell Coating

   5.   Dewaxing

   6.   Pouring

   7.   Shell Removing

   8.   Heat Treatment

   9.   Finishing

   10. Final Inspection of the raw casting

   11. Other value added processes like machining

Is the steel investment casting process costly?

The cost of steel investment casting is medium to high. Investment casting, popularly known as lost-wax casting process takes longer time than other casting processes but offers great versatility in complex geometry and materials.

Have more questions? Reach us on the details given below.