Protocast JLC

Precision Investment Casting

What is Investment Casting?

Investment Casting is the process of forming a ceramic shell around a wax tree comprised of wax patterns, then melting the wax from the ceramic shell and finally pouring a metal alloy into the negative cavity.  When the alloy cools the ceramic shell is knocked away and the castings are ready to be cut away from the tree.  At that point, the castings are finished to the customers’ specifications and are prepared for shipping. 

The Investment Casting Process

  1. Wax Pattern Injection
  2. Tree Assembly
  3. Shell Building or Solid Mold Investment
  4. Dewaxing the Shell 
  5. Pouring
  6. Knockout and Washout
  7.  Finishing
  8. Shipping

Benefits of Investment Casting

  • Low Initial Tooling Costs: Investment casting tools generally have a lower cost when averaged over the parts produced. 
  • Reduced or Eliminated Machining Costs: Investment castings produce near net shop castings reducing the need for post machining.
  • Reduced or Eliminated Welding Costs:  While other processes require welding several castings together for their application, the investment casting process can combine those designs into a single part without the loss of detail.
  • Near Limitless Alloy Choices: Protocast JLC takes full advantage of this benefit by supply castings made from both ferrous and non-ferrous alloys. 
  • Internal and External Design Flexibility: The lost wax investment casting process offers near limitless design flexibility 
  • No Draft Requirement – Unlike sand casting, which utilizes cores, the investment casting process requires no draft.  This allows for more intricate designs and detail.
  • Extremely Tight Tolerance – Investment casting offers some of the tightest tolerances of any other casting process.
  • Improved Surface Finishes – There is no other process that delivers surface finishes as fine as the investment casting process.  
  • Consistency – Investment casting delivers consistent net shape castings with more intricate detail than any other metal forming process. 

 

Investment Casting Experience

With over 50 years in the investment casting industry, Protocast JLC  offers customers expert evaluation of your investment casting needs.

Our foundry offers a wide variety of ferrous and non-ferrous alloys. We pour investment castings with stainless steel, carbon steel, aluminum, nickel, cobalt, inconel, and copper-based alloys.  

Whether you require reverse engineering, prototype investment castings, production investment castings, CNC machining, or post-production plating and finishing Protocast-JLC provides the highest quality parts and customer service.