What is Steel Precision Waterglass Casting

Water glass casting is also called sodium silicate casting. Its casting process is very similar to investment casting (that is the lost wax investment casting method). It is a technology that uses water glass as the binder for the shell to cast. 

It is particularly suited to larger castings and is cheaper to produce. The raw materials are mainly steel and iron.

The Water glass casting technology is from Russia. Now it is one of the most common investments casting process in China. About 75% of foundries focus their business on water glass casting. the rest are silica sol casting factories.

With this method, it is suitable for steel castings, especially for carbon steel and alloy steel castings. It allows to produce steel castings ranging from 0.5kg-60kg.

1.Product Display

2.Benefits of water glass casting

JC Casting is a water glass casting manufacturer and supplier. We have a wealth of experience in manufacturing water glass components.

To summarise, the water glass process Benefits:

• Superior surface finish than sand casting.
• Greater dimensional precision than sand casting.
• Achieve more complex parts.
• Suited to larger parts than the traditional investment casting method.
• Cheaper than investment casting.
• Short Lead time than investment casting.
• Greater choice of metals.
• Environmental advantages. (the wax is completely recyclable.)

3.Water Glass Investment Casting Process

The difference between the lost wax method and water glass casting is simply the way the wax is removed from the ceramic mold:

Investment casting uses high-temperature autoclaves to melt the wax, whereas:-
In Water glass casting the molds are submerged in hot water to remove the wax. The wax is then melted away from the molds and it floats on the surface of the water. This then allows for it to be skimmed off and reused for wax-making purposes.

Obviously, this also provides environmental advantages and the wax is completely recyclable.

Step 1:Wax Injection

For each casting desired, the melted wax is injected into a mold to produce a wax pattern of the casting. The wax molds are made of Aluminum and sized to account for shrinkage in the wax and metal that are being used. Wax tooling ranges from simple two-piece dies to multi-cavity automated dies and complex dies featuring water-soluble or ceramic cores.

Step 2: Wax Assembly

Once the wax patterns have cooled and settled to a stable size and shape. They will be mounted onto a sprue or tree. The sprue which is also made of wax contains all of the necessary gates, runners, and supports to adequately feed the part during the casting process

Step 3: Shell making

The wax sprue is now “invested” in ceramics. This creates the mold for the metal to be poured into. The ceramic consists of two parts. The surface is a liquid slurry covered with dry sand. Each sprue is covered in many layers of slurry and sand. Until the ceramic shell is thick enough to hold up during the casting process. The shell building time usually takes 1 day. And also need 2 days to almost 1 week for the shells to fully dry.

Step 4: Dewax

Once the shell has fully dried, The shells can be fired to remove any remaining wax residue and cure the ceramic shell. After the shells have been fired, they are ready for the casting pouring

Step 5: Pouring

Before casting, The processed shells are placed back in the oven to be pre-heated. When the shells are at the proper temperature and the molten metal has been prepared and qualified. The shells are removed from the oven and the metal is poured into the shells.

Step 6: Finishing

The shell is hammered, media blasted, vibrated, waterjet, or chemically dissolved (sometimes with liquid nitrogen) to get the finished casting. The sprue is cut off and recycled. The casting may then be cleaned up to remove signs of the casting process. Usually by grinding.