Investment casting for Prototyping and Production
Due to the growth in our Rapid Prototyping, Rapid Tooling, and Injection Molding divisions, which has demanded a reallocation of internal resource, VistaTek is referring our customers to Invest Cast, Inc. for their Investment Casting services.
We still offer this on our website because we want to make sure our customers have the opportunity to have all product development options available to effectively get their product to market.
VistaTek feels confident referring our customers to InvestCast, Inc. They have been our supplier for over 10 years. They understand the industry and have been reliable on timelines, quality and pricing. We would like to forward the advantages of our relationship on to you.
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With the advancements in rapid prototyping, investment casting has become the leading technology for producing high-quality castings quickly and inexpensively. Investment casting, also known as the "lost wax" process, consists of attaching an expendable pattern (usually wax, and for our purposes generated via rapid prototyping) to a tree which acts as its sprue, then repeatedly dipping the pattern into a stucco light slurry. The ceramic shell is allowed to dry before the next layer of slurry is applied.
The end result is a thick ceramic shell surrounding the pattern and its sprue. The next step is to melt or to flash out the remaining pattern. Once the pattern is removed, the hollow ceramic shell is now filled with molten metal. After an appropriate cooling time - usually quite short - the ceramic shell is broken off, and the metal casting is processed as usual. A major advantage to investment casting is that either ferrous of nonferrous materials can be used. The recent big breakthroughs relate to how rapid prototyping is used in the process: SLS CastForm materials, SLA QuickCast Patterns and Rapid Aluminum tooling for Epoxy Wax Injection.
SLS CastForm Materials
SLS patterns built using CastForm material are infiltrated with foundry wax to create an ideal investment casting pattern. They are ideal for parts requiring higher tolerance, multiple-run parts and larger parts.
Epoxy Wax Injection
Many times when multiple metal prototypes are needed, the expendable patterns can become quite expensive. A more practical approach may be to make wax injection molds from rapid tooling. This procedure usually reduces the cost and can still give multiple metal castings in three to four weeks. This allows the abilitity to get thousands of investment casted parts for low volume production.
