Microcasting

Lost-wax casting

Aluminums, steels

Microcasting, also known as lost-wax casting, employs sacrificial patterns identical to the geometries of the part to be produced in metal. Sacrificial models, commonly known as waxes, are made of special materials that are designed to liquefy and burn at relatively low temperatures and leave no ash. Sacrificial models are used to make a structure known as a cluster in which the pieces are the “grains” of the cluster and the “stalk” is the feed channel for the molten metal. This wax structure is embedded in an inert material (plaster or liquid ceramic) and then placed in firing.

During firing, the refractory solidifies and the waxes dissolve, leaving a cavity identical to the pieces with the casting system. (aluminum and steel investment casting). The result is a hollow shell that can then be filled with aluminum (if the shell is plaster) or steel (if the shell is ceramic). The shell with ceramic casting is considerably stronger but a very long process is required to create it (it is achieved by dipping the cluster in “slip,” liquid ceramic, letting it dry and repeating this sequence many times).

Features

lost wax casting

Investment castings of prototypes can be obtained by direct printing of digital polystyrene (very fast and inexpensive, but with a rough surface finish and ±0.16mm accuracy) or by casting molten wax in silicone molds made from stereolithographic masters. These are perfectly compact and have a detail level of ±0.05mm.

Lost-wax castings are characterized by very high resolution (down to ±0.05mm), but precisely because of the very large number of layers needed to build the parts, parts larger than 120mm in height tend to have very high costs. Monolithic objects up to a maximum size of 350mm can be made in prototyping.

Applications
Developed applications
  • Grids
  • Caps
  • Knobs
  • Burners
  • Wok Supports
  • Tubs
  • Distributors
  • Shut-off valves
  • Control valves
  • Pump body
  • Carrier lantern
  • Mouthpieces
  • Valves
  • Shredders
  • Open Impellers
  • Closed Impellers
  • Single-channel impellers
  • Diffusers
  • Circulators
  • Supports
  • Engine shields
  • Inverter boxes
  • Carcasses
  • Finned masses
  • Streetlights
  • Racing parts
  • Aluminum frames
  • Engine cylinders
  • Motor heads
  • Brake calipers
  • Clutch Crankcase
  • Engine crankcase
  • Gearboxes
  • Frame elements
  • Forks
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