Custom metal casting involves pouring molten metal into a mold to produce a solid metal component. Permanent molds are typically cast from steel or iron and can be used many times to make replicable copies. Temporary molds, however, are best for single-use casting and can be made of sand, foam, plaster investment, ceramic shell, or resin-bonded sand.
We will explore the advantages of casting metal components, comparing the process and its benefits to welding and helping you determine if metal casting is an ideal replacement for your weldments.
Key Advantages of Metal Casting over Welding
Casting offers several key benefits to manufacturers. The following are some of the biggest advantages of using casting in place of traditional welding:
Reduced Labor Shortage Issues
Finding qualified welders to meet production demands is one of the most prevalent challenges in modern manufacturing. Manufacturers can convert repetitive welding processes to castings, reducing labor demands and freeing up capacity to ensure welders focus on higher-level welding tasks.
Consistency in Quality
Converting weldments to castings removes variables that can create quality issues during the welding process, including inconsistent weld beads, porosity or pinhole defects in weld joints, inadequate weld size, and missed welds. Casting utilizes the same production tooling for each cycle, offering consistently produced components.
Weldments can also have high residual stresses from the heat zones around welds, which can cause distortion during builds or cracking post-build. Castings are a single entity and offer a uniform structure to avoid this problem.
Freedom To Design Complex Parts
Metal casting can produce complex geometries and intricate details that would be challenging to replicate with traditional fabrication methods. Metal is poured into molds to create complex shapes with fine details, including varying thicknesses and internal cavities.
Casting allows manufacturers the versatility to create components with unique external and internal designs and features.
Additional Benefits
Choosing quality casting services offers the following added benefits:
- Reduced labor time
- Minimal assembly time
- Decreased inventory of sub-assemblies and part numbers
- Enhanced product durability
- Improved dimensional accuracy of finished components
Weldment to Casting Process
When a manufacturer converts weldments to castings, it can eliminate many of the inherent challenges of welding. Casting is less labor-intensive than welding, where critical issues can remain hidden until it is too late in the production process to make changes.
Casting can also eliminate inconsistent weld beads, pin holes and porosity in weld joints, inadequate weld sizes for joints, and missed welds. Conversely, the extreme heat from welding can warp metals and make it more difficult to deliver consistent component quality.
Our Weldment to Casting Services
Midwest Metal Products offers clients a complimentary weldment to casting evaluation, minimizing the financial risks of moving to high-quality casting operations. We work with our clients to evaluate their current weldments when they download and use our certificate. Our experienced in-house team of metallurgists and engineers can even produce 3D product models from the information gathered during our consultation.
Together, our streamlined services and on-time delivery ensure customer satisfaction.
Quality Castings For All Metal Types by Midwest Metal
Manufacturers can significantly improve the quality of their products and processes by switching from weldments to casting. The advantages of casting metal parts include fewer assemblies, reduced labor, and improved design freedom.
Midwest Metal Products works with you to fine-tune your manufacturing with metal casting services. Our in-house metallurgist and talented engineers can optimize the process based on your manufacturing needs. We deliver frustration-free metal casting solutions from our facility in Winona, MN.
Contact us to speak with a casting specialist about your manufacturing needs.