On the North American Die Casting Association’s website, the association says that metal casting is America’s most fundamental industry. Is this true? Should you take a metalworking association’s word for that kind of statement? I think it’s impossible to evaluate one sector of the economy as “most fundamental,” but they’re certainly right that Continue reading
Imagine this scenario. You need groceries, so you decide to head to the grocery store. You’ve got a list of 20 or so items that you need for home. You pull into the parking lot and enter the store only to find that the store offers only one product: evaporated milk. At first you think it’s just an oversized display or a special, but as you walk the aisles, you realize that there is nothing to buy except row upon row of evaporated milk. Needless to say, this store wouldn’t be of much use to Continue reading
There are a lot of ways to make a metal part. This is because the need for metal parts is varied. That need is varied in terms of the nature of demand for different kinds of metal parts and in terms of the amount of parts that different buyers may need. Different processes lend themselves more or less than other processes to large batch sizes or small batch sizes, profile complexity or Continue reading
In a 1988 paper released by NASA and the Georgia Institute of Technology, Soil Transport Implement, researchers presented an outline for the design of a component that would protect a vehicle that was being designed for moon expeditions. At that point in NASA’s history, the moon landing was becoming a Continue reading
There would be no die cast products without die casting molds. Die casting molds are the cavities in which molten metals are forced during the die casting process. Die casting, as a concept, is really quite simple. The best analogy for die casting is the Playdough analogy. Imagine that you’ve got a container’s worth of Playdough in your hand. While the dough is just sitting in your hand, it doesn’t experience any physical changes. It just sits there. But if you close your hand slowly around the dough, its shape gives way to the pressure exerted by your hand. Eventually, if you Continue reading
The die casting process is used for the fabrication of a wide variety of metal products. However, because not all of these products can be designed using a single die casting method, engineers in the die casting industry have developed variations on the traditional die casting method in order to accommodate the making of die cast products that can be produced only in certain ways. Let’s just quickly go over the most common die casting process. The process begins by drawing molten metal into a casting cavity and then pressurizing it. This pressurization causes the metal to take the shape of the cavity. Then, once the metal has taken its shape, it is Continue reading
If you were to do a Google image search for “die cast,” you might be surprised by the search results. Instead of cast aluminum intake manifolds, cast zinc faucets or industrial magnesium castings, you’re more likely to see a thousand miniature models of cars, trucks, airplanes, helicopters and even action figures. That’s the difficulty with searching for products on the Internet; it can be hard to know how to ask Google for the results you’re looking for, and it can be even more difficult to sort through Continue reading
Die castings image courtesy of Crown Die Casting Corporation.
Die casters fill an important role in industry, and it’s a role that can’t be undertaken by just anyone. While the process of shaping raw metal into a usable product may seem simple, in reality it’s very complicated and often can be very expensive. Especially considering the fact that people’s safety often relies on the integrity of die cast products, such as in the case of cast automotive or aircraft components, die casting isn’t a task to leave to amateurs. Proper die casting operations are staffed by Continue reading
Die castings image courtesy of A&B Die Casting.
Die casting professionals need access to a wide variety of casting materials in order to meet the varied needs of their customers. Patrons of die casting facilities could come to those companies with the need for light-weight materials, materials with RFI or EMI shielding qualities, materials that are highly ductile, materials that have high-strength to weight ratios and all kinds of other specific material quality requirements. In order to respond to the diverse needs of their customers, die casting service personnel need to Continue reading