Lost Wax Casting

Because tooling costs for lost wax casting are comparatively low this is an excellent technique for making low volume parts. Lost wax casting is also well suited for casting brass and stainless steel which are difficult or impossible to diecast. LBE customers have used our lost wax casting capability to produce brass ice sensor housings and polished stainless steel switch holders.

Brass Ring

Lost wax brass for snow ice detector.

Motorcycle Part — Polished stainless steel, lost wax cast part for retro-styled motorcycle.

What is Lost Wax Casting?

Investment or Lost Wax casting is one of the oldest known metal-forming techniques. From 5,000 years ago, when beeswax formed the pattern, to today’s high-technology waxes, refractory materials and specialist alloys, the castings allow the production of components with accuracy, repeatability, versatility and integrity in a variety of metals and high-performance alloys.

The process is generally used for small castings, but has been used to produce complete aircraft door frames, steel castings of up to 300 kg (660 lbs) and aluminium castings of up to 30 kg (66 lbs). It is generally more expensive per unit than die casting or sand casting, but has lower equipment costs. It can produce complicated shapes that would be difficult or impossible with die casting and requires little surface finishing and only minor machining.

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