How to produce small iron castings

In the past, we have talked about how to produce large iron castings, so now, we will talk about some about how to produce small iron castings.

As for small iron castings, we meant gray iron and nodular iron castings with weights less than 2kg.

It is not an easy thing to produce small iron castings, so there are many iron foundries would not like to produce them. The main reasons are because they are too light to reach a large weight volume, and too many pieces will cause very large cleaning and grinding works. So, small iron castings will be more expensive relatively.

Then, what kind of iron casting factory or what production process are suitable to produce small castings?

1. Investment casting workshops

Lost wax investment casting process is suitable to produce small metal castings, from 0.1kg to several kgs, however, most of investment casting factories in China are producing steel castings, not iron castings, but still some factories could produce iron castings by this process.

Investment casting process is suitable to produce small iron castings since they could reach better surface quality, high dimensional tolerance of rough castings, and less sand residues.

2. Shell molding process

Shell molding process is also called as hot shell and core molding process, or pre-coated resin sand casting process. This process could reach similar surface quality and dimensional accuracy as lost wax casting process, and because its own characters, it is suitable to produce small cast iron parts.

There are many small and middle sized iron foundries in China who are using this process to produce iron castings, but seldom to use it to produce steel castings. According to our clients, there are many steel foundries have abandoned the investment casting process, and using shell molding process to produce small steel castings. The pollution of investment casting process is one reason, the other reason is shell molding could reach higher production rate.

Few iron foundries in China could produce small iron castings by manual green sand casting process or by molding machines. The followings are some small cast iron parts made by Dandong Foundry.

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