Investment Casting

Unimetal utilizes the latest CAD technology to build its customers’ Wax Injection Tooling with optimal casting parameters at the most competitive cost. The apparatus and fixtures that provide and support the dimensional consistency of the Wax Injection Tooling are designed and built to perfection with a view to repeatability of correct measurements at precisely customer-required tolerances.

Production of wax models is the first step in the investment casting process. The surface quality of the wax models has a direct impact on the part's surface quality. We use horizontal and vertical injection presses for this process, which includes injection of melted wax into tooling cavity. Each injection press in Unimetal is integrated with PLC system and a high level of efficiency is ensured through recording of relevant production parameters for the injection process.

The next stage of component production with investment casting is producing the casting cluster, Wax Assembly. Following the injection step, the wax models are mounted on a central wax runner and sprues to create a cluster. Assembly Process Plans created for each component are used for forming this cluster. Thus, assembly parameters are fixed and continuous quality levels are maintained.

Shell Building / Ceramic coating operation is one of the most critical stages in the lost wax process process. Our ceramic coating area, including the ventilation system, have been improved through new investments, making it possible to stabilize ambient temperature and humidity at optimum values,

During dewaxing procedure, ceramic coated clusters are placed into the autoclave's pressure chamber. The system, activated within less than 5 seconds, reaches 8-10 bars of pressure interval and the wax is removed from the ceramic clusters through exposure to vapor at 180 degrees Centigrade. Thus, any damage on ceramic shells due to cracking is completely eliminated. Continuous recording and traceability is ensured for the fully automated dewaxing system, through keeping all relevant operating parameters under control. Energy saving of our fully automated autoclave system is minimized operation cost due to the vapor recovery system.

We use induction furnaces for melting steel, stainless steel and bronze alloys and electrical melting furnaces for aluminum alloys. We have challenged and beaten the bias of " a foundry can not be clean " through our investments and the installed control system, and conveniently offer our services with a modern foundry regarding occupational health and safety principles. We perform before and after casting analyses with the spectrometer, ensuring traceability through uninterrupted recording. We can also analyze special alloys and check the results thanks to the additional feature of our spectrometer device for determining the nitrogen content within steel. We are capable of reporting a wide range of chemical analysis procedures, from non-ferrous materials to steel products, from aluminum alloys to super alloys, with appropriate reference samples.

After the clusters have completed cooling, the ceramic shells are removed with a pneumatic hammer-equipment, and then the casted parts are cut out of the cluster. The parts are then subjected to grinding and finishing operations (deburring, cleaning, sand-blasting / surface polishing).