Metal casting is the process of creating a mold and pouring molten metal into it to produce everything from tiny fasteners to large industrial components. While it’s a straightforward process, specialized equipment and expertise are required to produce functional, aesthetic products.
Warner Brothers Foundry offers the technology, tools and techniques you need to manufacture parts efficiently at scale. Here, we’ll explain what the metal casting process is and how simple choices can enhance your products.
Understanding the Cast Mold Process for Complex Parts
Machining complex parts at scale is costly, especially for runs involving from-scratch machining. Cast molding enables efficient, cost-effective production of both simple and highly intricate parts.
Here’s a brief overview of how the cast mold process usually works:
- Making the pattern: The foundry creates a replica of the object to be cast to determine the mold dimensions.
- Creating the mold: Using the pattern, we build a hollow shape that will serve as the mold. Depending on the type of mold needed, it may be made from plastic, sand, plaster or metal.
- Melting and transferring the metal: After selecting the appropriate metal type for the specified part, we load it into our gas furnace to melt. We then pour the molten metal into the mold and allow it to cool, which can take anywhere from several minutes to several days.
- Finishing and cleaning the part: We apply the final touches by removing excess metal and clearing away particles and dirt, bringing it closer to the original pattern. Some products may also require heat treatment to make the metal more resilient.
- Inspection: We end all our casting processes with a thorough inspection to ensure completeness, quality and physical integrity. At Warner Brothers Foundry, we use X-ray and/or Penetrant inspection to verify that castings meet quality standards.
Expendable vs. Permanent Molds
Typically, expendable molds are disposed of after use, while permanent molds are reused for multiple production runs. This difference exists because the materials used in expendable molds must be broken after casting to remove the completed part.
The molding method your business should use depends on the volume of parts you need to produce, the material you’re casting and your budget. Permanent mold castings are ideal for high-volume production using metals with low melting points. Expendable molds, however, are ideal for lower-volume runs.
Types of Metal Casting Methods
Some of the most common types of metal casting methods include:
- Sand casting: One of the simplest and most common expendable casting methods, sand casting is best for producing industrial parts such as automotive components. Warner Brothers Foundry uses air-set sand casting, which provides greater stability and improved mechanical properties compared to other sand casting methods.
- Plaster mold casting: This expendable casting method is cost-effective due to the low cost of plaster and its ability to produce near-net shape results.
- Investment casting: While this casting method is more costly than sand or plaster casting, it can produce more intricate designs than other expendable casting techniques.
- Permanent mold casting: Reusable molds made from steel, graphite, or cast iron enable long production runs for a wide variety of alloys.
- Continuous casting: This method involves continuously pouring molten metal through a cooled mold, enabling you to create long, uniform pieces such as billets and blooms.
Advantages of Metal Casting
Metal casting offers several key benefits for manufacturing:
- Complex geometries: Casting can produce intricate shapes and internal cavities that would be difficult or expensive to machine.
- Cost-effective production: For medium to large production runs, casting is more economical than machining parts from solid stock.
- Large components: Casting can produce large industrial parts in a single piece, eliminating the need for welding or assembly.
- Near-net shape: Cast parts require minimal post-processing, reducing material waste and machining time.
Choosing the Right Alloy for Your Application
The metal you choose directly impacts your final product’s quality and performance. At Warner Brothers Foundry, we specialize in non-ferrous alloys, or alloys that don’t contain iron.
What Is Cast Aluminum?
Cast aluminum is an aluminum alloy that has been melted and cast into a mold. It’s a lightweight metal that resists rust and corrosion, making it ideal for use in outdoor applications such as wind turbines and solar panels.
What Are Brass and Bronze?
Brass and bronze are copper alloys used for various applications. Brass is a mixture of copper and zinc that is corrosion-resistant, ductile and easy to shape. It’s commonly used in plumbing and decorative hardware.
Bronze is a highly durable alloy made from copper and tin. It’s generally stronger than brass and highly corrosion-resistant. These properties make it ideal for marine and industrial applications such as ship propellers, boat fittings, bearings, gears and more.
Partner With a Foundry That Protects Your Supply Chain
If you need professional cast molding services, Warner Brothers Foundry has built a solid reputation since 1955 and provides excellent service and quality. Our team can help you design and create molds, manufacture your products and ensure they meet specifications. We guarantee our casting quality and will replace any castings with defects at no charge.
As a full-service casting foundry, we also provide non-destructive testing services to ensure you’re satisfied with your products. Contact us today to submit your CAD files for review and request your free quote.
