LOSTWAXInvestment Casting

LOSTWAX · Investment Casting

Investment castings, engineered from alloy to inspection report.

LOSTWAX is the investment casting brand of Modulus Metal: a manufacturing partner for precision cast components in steel, stainless steel and special alloys, and an open technical reference on the lost-wax process, materials, tolerances and quality.

Explore the processMaterials database

  • 34 alloys in the reference database
  • 30 process stages explained
  • 65 standards in the library

What investment casting is

A wax pattern, a ceramic shell and almost any alloy that can be melted.

Investment casting reproduces an expendable wax pattern in metal. Because the one-piece ceramic mould has no parting line and is poured hot, the process delivers thin walls, undercuts, internal passages and fine surface detail that other casting methods cannot hold.

For industrial buyers this means fewer machining operations, parts consolidated from welded or assembled designs, and free choice of alloy — from carbon steel to duplex stainless steel and nickel alloys — at quantities from prototypes to series production.

Investment casting explained →

Why investment casting

Four engineering reasons to choose the process

  • Geometric freedom

    Undercuts, internal passages, thin ribs and lettering are cast in, without draft on most surfaces.

  • Alloy flexibility

    Ferrous and non-ferrous alloys, including grades that are difficult to forge or machine.

  • Near-net shape

    Close as-cast tolerances and a fine surface reduce machining to functional features.

  • Scalable quantities

    Moderate tooling cost makes the process economic from small batches to long-running series.

Advantages and limitations →

Manufacturing process

Thirty controlled stages in six phases

  1. 01

    Engineering and tooling

    Engineering and drawing review · Casting feasibility assessment · Tooling design · Wax injection tooling manufacture

  2. 02

    Wax patterns and assembly

    Wax pattern injection · Wax pattern inspection · Pattern assembly · Gating and runner design

  3. 03

    Ceramic shell

    Ceramic slurry preparation · Refractory stucco application · Ceramic shell building · Shell drying · Dewaxing · Shell firing and preheating

  4. 04

    Melting and casting

    Alloy melting · Metal pouring · Solidification and cooling

  5. 05

    Finishing and machining

    Shell knockout · Casting removal from the tree · Gate and runner cut-off · Fettling and grinding · Surface finishing · Heat treatment · Shot blasting · CNC machining

  6. 06

    Verification and dispatch

    Dimensional inspection · Metallurgical and mechanical testing · Final inspection · Marking and traceability · Packaging and dispatch

Open the interactive process diagram →

Materials and alloys

A reference database organised by alloy family

Composition limits, minimum mechanical properties, density and carefully classified international cross-references for the cast grades most often specified by European and North American customers.

6 grades

Carbon and low-alloy steels

Structural, pressure-retaining and heat-treatable steel grades for general engineering castings.

6 grades

Austenitic stainless steels

Cast counterparts of the 304 and 316 families and higher-alloyed austenitic grades for corrosive service.

3 grades

Martensitic and precipitation-hardening stainless steels

High-strength stainless grades whose properties are set by hardening and tempering or by ageing.

2 grades

Duplex and super duplex stainless steels

Austenitic-ferritic grades with high strength and resistance to chloride pitting and stress corrosion.

2 grades

Heat-resistant steels

High-carbon iron-chromium-nickel casting alloys for furnace parts and service above about 650 °C.

6 grades

Nickel-based alloys

Corrosion-resistant Ni-Cr-Mo and Ni-Cu alloys and high-temperature nickel alloys.

2 grades

Cobalt-based alloys

Cobalt-chromium alloys for wear, galling and high-temperature resistance.

1 grades

Aluminium alloys

Heat-treatable Al-Si-Mg casting alloys for lightweight, thin-walled precision castings.

4 grades

Copper-based alloys

Silicon bronze, aluminium bronze, nickel-aluminium bronze and red brass casting alloys.

2 grades

Titanium alloys

Unalloyed titanium and Ti-6Al-4V castings for high specific strength and corrosion resistance.

Search all materials →

Engineering and design support

Design decisions determine quality and cost

Wall transitions, fillet radii, gate positions, datum targets and machining allowances are settled before tooling is cut. We review drawings for casting feasibility, advise on material selection and plan the machining route together with the casting.

Design and engineering →

Precision and quality

Verification that matches the specification

Dimensional inspection, material verification, non-destructive testing and documentation are planned per order, from a basic 3.1 certificate to witnessed third-party inspection.

01

Dimensional inspection

Dimensional inspection methods for castings: hand gauges, CMM, optical 3D scanning, form measurement, datum alignment, first article inspection and series control.

02

Non-destructive testing

NDT methods for investment castings: liquid penetrant, magnetic particle, radiographic and ultrasonic testing, computed tomography, leak testing, personnel qualification and acceptance levels.

03

Material testing

Verification of cast alloys: spectrometric chemical analysis, PMI, tensile, hardness and impact testing, metallography, ferrite measurement, corrosion tests and heat-treatment verification.

04

Documentation

Documentation for investment castings: EN 10204 inspection documents 2.1, 2.2, 3.1 and 3.2, material certificates, dimensional and NDT reports, heat-treatment records and traceability.

Industrial applications

Where investment castings are used

Aerospace Automotive Motorsport Energy Power generation Oil and gas Pumps and valves Marine Defence Medical equipment Industrial machinery Robotics Automation Agriculture Railway Chemical processing Food processing General engineering

Technical knowledge centre

References engineers actually use

01

Tolerances

Tolerancing of investment castings: ISO 8062-3 casting tolerance grades, VDG P 690, geometrical tolerances to ISO 1101, datum systems, machining allowance, shrinkage and distortion.

02

Casting defects

Reference library of investment casting defects: appearance, possible causes, process stages of origin, detection methods and preventive and corrective measures.

03

Standards library

Searchable reference list of ISO, EN, ASTM, VDG and other standards relevant to investment casting: tolerances, materials, testing, NDT, surface acceptance and inspection documents.

04

Engineering tools

Free engineering tools for casting design and purchasing: unit converter, casting weight calculator, material comparison and ISO 8062-3 casting tolerance reference.

05

International equivalents

How to compare cast alloy designations across EN, DIN, ASTM, ASME, UNS, AISI, SAE, JIS, ISO and GB/T, and why similar grades are not automatically interchangeable.

06

Glossary

Multilingual glossary of investment casting, metallurgical, tolerance and inspection terms in English, German, French and Dutch for engineers and buyers.

Part of Modulus Metal

A specialised brand within a wider manufacturing organisation

LOSTWAX is a specialised investment casting brand of Modulus Metal, an engineering and manufacturing supply organisation based in Ankara.

Through Modulus Metal and its qualified manufacturing partners, castings can be combined with CNC machining, heat treatment, surface finishing, inspection and supply-chain coordination under one point of contact.

Capabilities and engineering support → modulusmetal.com ↗

Contact

Send a drawing or call us

E-mail

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Telephone

Address

LOSTWAX — Modulus Metal
Beştepe Mah. Nergiz Sok. 7/2 No: 87
Yenimahalle, Ankara, Turkey

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