Tooling in Investment  Casting is considered to be wax-injection dies that are used to create wax patterns. If you’re following us from our previous trivia posts or you’re familiar with how investment casting works, you already know that these wax patterns form the basis of the investment Casting process. Each part begins from the wax pattern, and the properties of wax – smooth surface, low melting temperature, and excellent flow properties that are made highly complex investment castings is possible

How Tooling for Investment Casting Designed?

Usually, the customer is the one who is responsible for the casting design. A good casting facility will work with the customer to ensure that their design is optimized for Manufacturability and passes through Quality Process. Foundries can recommend design changes to improve product quality and function, also increasing manufacturing efficiency and lowering cost.

Once the design is set and agreed upon by both customer and supplier, the casting facility will work directly with the toolmaker to design the tool.  The foundry works directly with the toolmaker for making sure that the materials, dimensions, and critical surfaces are optimized.

Materials for Investment Casting Tooling

Usually, Wax-Injection dies used for investment casting are often made out of aluminum. Aluminum’s properties make it an ideal material for investment casting. First, its thermal properties allow heat to quickly dissipate, helping to reduce cycle times during wax injection. Aluminum is also less dense than other alloys, so aluminum dies to weigh less and are easier to handle and transport. Aluminum is a highly machinable material, so machining costs for producing aluminum dies are relatively low. Aluminum is also easily attainable, so machine shops and toolmakers can acquire aluminum stock easily

What factors that affecting the cost of investment casting tools?

Investment casting tooling can be much lower than tooling for other casting processes. Tool pricing can range from $1,800 up to and exceeding $20,000. So what can make this tooling cost varies? The factors that affect the cost are as follows:

1. Casting complexity, Overly complex parts may require more moving parts within the tool, which increases the amount of time and the number of processes required to construct it.
2. Size, Larger parts means require larger tools, which require more material when constructing the tooling and more time to machine the mold cavity in the tool
3. In specific cases, soluble cores may be required. While soluble cores are a great asset in the production of complex inner cavities, they require their own tool which increases the up-front tooling cost

Advantage Of Using Investment Casting

• Flexible Design
• Less Waste, Strong Manufacturing Cost
• Tighter Tolerance (More Precise)
• Excellent and smooth surface finish
• Reduce the need for secondary machining.
•  Wide selection of cast metals and alloys

Why Should You Choose Zenith?

• Engineering, With 20 years of experience in Lostwax Casting, we are experts in casting any kind of products and materials. Updating knowledge is a must as part of our Engineering team’s daily workload.
• Quality Focus, Our focus is Zero defects at the customer site.With ISO 9001:2015, ISO 13485:2016, CE Marking and PED 2014/68/EU Annex. I,4.3 & AD 2000-W0 certified, we have a system to control every production step to get the required quality that customer needs,
• High Capacity, Our capacity a month can cover 120 tons with available induction furnaces range from 100kg, 150kg, and 250 kg.We also have 1 dedicated line for medical products (zenmed+)
• IT Utilize System, With every process is managed using a cloud system, the information flow is very quick and accessible everywhere & anytime.We also enable Extranet for customers to check their PO progress and related information and documents.
• Lean Manufacturing, By applying Lean Manufacturing, every process steps is Visual Controlled and Every Waste is identified and controlled using Continuous Improvement/Kaizen.
• Health, Safety, & CRS, By having certified for ISO 45001:2018 and ISO 14001:2015, We are committed to concern with our People Health, Safety & Environment. We are also a permanent donator for Indonesia Cancer Foundation and supporting Orphans nearby the Factory.