Lead Casting Methods
Lead is useful for many applications, in particular lead casting – pouring liquid metal lead or alloy lead into a prefabricated mold – can be used for a range of projects ranging from home casting for collectors, fishermen and hunters to large industrial castings for ship keels and ballast weights.
There are several methods of casting lead alloys, depending on the type of piece to be made and the resouces available to the person making the casting.
Sand Casting – is one of the most popular and simplest types of casting that has been used for centuries.Castings can be made in a range of sizes from pieces that fit in the palm of your hand to entire train chassis. It can take several days to prepare a sand casting mold.The sand is bonded together using clays, chemical binders, or polymerized oils (such as motor oil). Sand can be recycled many times in most operations and requires little maintenance.
Investment Casting – (also known as lost-wax casting) is a process that has been practised for thousands of years, originally beeswax was used but today modern specialized high technology waxes are used to create high-quality components.
Investment casting derives its name from the fact that the pattern is invested, or surrounded, with a refractory material. The wax pattern is carved into an exact replica of the piece to be produced and then is invested or surrounded by a refractory material. When the molten metal is poured into the mold the wax melts and the metal takes up its shape.
Permanent mold casting – is a metal casting process that employs reusable molds (“permanent molds”), usually made from metal. lead alloys are often cast in this manner
The die casting process forces molten metal mold cavities (which are machined into dies). The die casting method is especially suited for applications where many small to medium sized parts are needed with good detail, a fine surface quality and dimensional consistency.
Centrifugal casting – uses a temporary sand mold held in a spinning chamber.
Nuclead is expert in lead alloy pours and has extensive inventory of lead, aluminum and other metals suitable for casting projects.
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