•Low volume production is preferable
•Brass, Steel & Titanium Castings Available
•ISO Certified & Quality Control
•In-House Polishing, Plating, Powder coating, Passivating, Painting and Heat treatment
Metal Casting
We offer strong, durable, dimensionally stable production of metal casting parts and will be able to take your project from prototype to production in a short timeframe.
Our Metal casting capabilities includes Pressure Die Casting and Investment Casting. It’s the most cost effective way to produce medium to high volumes of metal parts with great surface finish and ensure dimensional accuracy. Also, we are happy to help on low-volume production, normally there will be no limit for small batch production.
As we are able to make casting parts by both processes, there is no limit for soft metal like Aluminum, Zinc or hard metal like bronze, carbon steel and stainless steel.
Pressure Die Casting
Pressure die casting is a quick, reliable and cost-effective manufacturing process for production of medium and high volume, metal components that are net-shaped have tight tolerances. Basically, the pressure die casting process consists of injecting under high pressure a molten metal alloy into a steel mold (or tool).
Material
Aluminum is good for strong, lightweight and complex geometries. It can also be highly polished. General material will be ADC12, A380, A356, ADC10, ZL101 and ZL102.
Zinc is more expensive but good for plating. Available Zinc alloys are Zinc #3 and #5.
Magnesium offers the best strength-to-weight ratio for higher performance applications. Currently we do not offer to make Magnesium parts.
Advantages of Pressure Die Casting
Lower costs compared to other processes.
Economical - typically production of any number of components from thousands to millions before requiring replacement is possible.
Castings with close dimensional control and good surface finish
Finish
Most Die Castings require coatings/finishes - Normally available are: Chem Films (Chromate conversions such as Alodyne), Anodize, Wet Paint, E-Coating, Electroplating, and Powder Coating, Silk Screen printing and Pad Printing, Labeling and laser etching. For more finish info for Die Casting parts, please refer to Finishing Services.
Reach Machinery provides high-quality custom ferrous and non-ferrous investment casting parts and components for a wide range of industries. Investment casting is a very versatile process which is ideal for simple or complex, low or high volume production. We produce investment castings with material such as stainless steel, duplex stainless steel, titanium, carbon steel, tool steel, and aluminum alloys etc. Weight range from a few grams to almost one metric ton. We also provide a broad range of secondary service including machining, surface finishing etc.
Investment casting refers to the formation of ceramics around a wax pattern to form a shell for casting molten metal. Once wax patterns are created, they are melted into the gate system, immersed in slurry and sand to form a layered shell, and then replaced by molten metal such as stainless steel, bronze, or the like.
Material
Stainless Steel: 304/316/304L/316L/410/416/17-4
Duplex Stainless Steel: 2205
Super Duplex Stainless Steel: 2507/Zeron 100
Carbon Steels: 1000 series/4100 series/8600 series
Tool Steels:A2/S7/D2
Bronze and Copper alloy
Advantages of Investment Casting
l Sizes: 0.1 in to more than 3 feet
l Weights: a few grams to one metric ton
l Surface: very smooth finish
l Tight tolerances
l Reliable process controls and repeatability
l Design and casting versatility
l Efficient production
l Affordable tooling
l Material variety
Secondary Operations and Treatment of Investment Castings We Offer
l Polished zinc plating, nickel plating, electroplating, chrome plating
l Anodizing, phosphating, acid treatment, polishing
l High precision machining
l Broaching, milling, drilling, tapping
l Surface grinding, sand blasting, powder coating
l Heat treatment
Process Flow: Investment Casting (Colloidal silica shell mould)
1 WAX INJECTION
Wax mold of the desired castings are produced by injection molding. These replicas are called investment patterns.
2 ASSEMBLY
The patterns are attached to a central wax stick, called a sprue, to form a casting cluster or assembly.
3 SHELL BUILDING
The shell is built by immersing the assembly in a liquid ceramic slurry and then into a bed of extremely fine sand, the binder is the colloidal silica. Up to six layers may be applied in this manner.
4 DEWAX
Once the shell is dry, the wax is melted out, creating a negative impression of the assembly with in the shell.
5 CONVENTIONAL CASTING
In the conventional process, the shell is filled with molten metal by gravity pouring. As the metal cools, the parts and gates, sprue and pouring cup become one solid casting.
6 KNOCKOUT
When the metal has cooled and solidified, the ceramic shell is broken off by vibration or water blasting.
7 CUT OFF AND PART CLEANING
The parts are cut a way from the central sprue using a high speed friction saw. Then the parts are going to be cleaned by Acid Pickling.
8 FINISHED CASTINGS
After minor finishing operations, first inspection, heat treatment, part blasting, dimensional inspection, final Inspection, the metal castings- identical to the original wax patterns- are ready for shipment to the customer.
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