Lost Wax Casting

You may ask the person or company that is to make the castings.

A couple of years ago I had som wheel centres cast by Korea Brass in Seoul. The rim was 0.8mm thick by 3mm wide; there is a picture on

You can see some info on

Micro metal smiths

Thanks for all the replys.

Jonathon You certainly got me going there for a while with the typo but I managed to figure it out.

Thinest casting depends on how you are getting the metal into the mould

Three methods Gravity, Centrifugal force and air pressure. Gravity is the oldest but you need large sprues to get the metal in an it's logical that it wont go far in the mould without help! so thicke pattern and assistance Next oldest is swinging the mould after puttin the Molten metal in scary but it used to be done We learned that one a College! few years ago Steam pressure by damp asbestos pressing near th freshly poured metal forms a seal and steam forces metal into th mould. OK all dangerous but allow thinner patterns. More modern ways involve centrifugal casting machines either verticall or horizontally. usually spring wound, melt the metal and hit the butto metal flies in the mould and pattern is cast 0.3-5mm and less again w are talking small patterns here moulds two -3 inches with castin fitted inside. Theory of casting is that the pattern should fit in your mould! th sprues mounted so the metal can flow easily into the pattern and tha you can easily cut them off. The reservoir usually spherical in shap must be close to the centre of the mould ie the heat centre with th reservoir last to cool and close to the pattern this is a trade off reason for this is that get your metal in to the casting and as i cools it contracts you must be able to supply molten metal into you casting otherwise voids form as porosity or worse still parts of yo pattern is missing. it doesn't matter if voids form in your reservoir Check out dental suppliers sites for details of techniques particularl if your patterns are small also jewellery sites. both use Gold bu dental metal workers also use nonprecious metals so may be mor appropriate to you. secnd hand machinery is available though pricey bu hey you may be lucky. Keep your mould as hot as poss near that of the meting point of th metal so it doesn't cool in the casting and cast as quick as poss. email me if you want any other info. graha

-- Grahammo

----------------------------------------------------------------------- Grahammon's Profile:

Isn't there a newish gravity method where you make the mould with a space on top for the raw metal, then heat the whole thing to beyond the MP of the metal? Or something like that?

Do you know what I'm talking about ('cos I'm not too sure) / have you tried it?

In message , Grahammon wrote

At work they attach the shells to the machine where the shell is heated (to avoid the metal solidifying to soon) and the air is pumped out of it, the molten metal is drawn in to replace the vacuum created.

This produces thin castings of complex shapes (often with complex internal passages) in nickel superalloys.