The difference is in the detail!

It has taken literally years for us to perfect our casting process, by trial and error, experimentation and research... different materials; waxes, investment compounds and the brass composition itself have all been thoroughly tried and tested.

Research into the process - the traditional methods and its shortfalls as well as the modern equivalents and their benefits have been examined and the best of both developed into to what we feel is a very special formula - the skills of the traditional craft working hand in glove with modern technology - computer controlled kilns and quality assured materials.

The crafts people that we employ are highly skilled in mould making, wax production and casting and take every care to ensure that a customers original is faithfully and authentically reproduced, including, original flaws and distress marks.

Understanding "Lost Wax" Casting

The traditional casting process known as "Lost Wax Casting" dates back some 3000 years, but today with the help of modern technology, it is used to create items from the finest jewellery to extremely complex aerospace components. The modified process at Devon Metalcrafts involves the following steps:

Molten wax is then injected into the mould under pressure and, on cooling, the mould opened to reveal a perfect copy of the original.

Multiple copies of the wax patterns are then mounted around a stem of wax to create a "tree" and enclosed in a stainless steel flask ready for the "investment" process.

Investing and De-Waxing

The flask is then filled with a plaster type "slurry" called investment which sets solid around the wax tree.

Along with others the flask is loaded upsides down into a kiln which is heated to a precise temperature to allow the wax to melt out of the invested flasks, hence the name "lost wax". The temperature is then slowly increased to fire the flasks and burn off any last trace of the wax - the whole process can take up to 16 hours and for accuracy is computer controlled.

The cooling process is also carefully controlled, when the flasks have cooled to 500°C they are removed one at a time for casting.

Casting & Finishing

Brass ingots are melted by high power induction generator or gas air furnace, the molten metal is then poured into the flasks filling all the holes left by the wax. Depending on the weight and size of the castings this will be done by centrifuge or vacuum to ensure that the liquid metal fills every cavity and detail.

The flasks are then quenched in water and high pressure jets of water and air are used to remove most of the Investment and a final process of fine shot blasting finishes the cleaning process. The result is an exact replica of the wax tree with all the castings attached. Finally the castings are cut from the tree and the feeders removed to create a piece ready for checking and dispatch.

Plating, painting, patternation or polishing are all finishing processes that our customers like to apply themselves. If you go now to the pages of examples you will see some castings that have been finished by our customers.