Steel Investment Castings

Steel investment castings are typically used for a cost reduction alternative to stainless steel investment castings. Steel investment castings are heavily used in the energy (oil & gas), automotive, agriculture, valve and pump industries.

As a raw material steel is much cheaper than stainless steel because of the high cost of the nickel and chrome added to steel in order to make stainless steel. As with stainless steel investment castings, steel investment castings provides cost reductions due to near net shape, greatly reducing mill and lathe time. Our steel mud pump valves investment castings are a good example of parts that if machined instead of investment cast would produce a great deal of scrap.

Steel investment castings offer a virtually unlimited mechanical property range. Secondary heat treat operations can be performed after the investment casting process to make them up to 62 Rockwell C such as on our steel rock guards that need to be very durable. This makes steel casting the hardest metal utilized in the lost wax casting process.

Through secondary annealing operations steel investment castings can also become one of the softest metals investment cast with the exception of aluminum.