Michele Walla, who runs day-to-day operations. Standard investment casting
best practices are present, but the Aristo Cast team likes to work out new angles. T e company has a few special tricks of the trade up its sleeve, particularly when it comes to working with magnesium.
Breaking Down Barriers ”We take a good deal of pride
in the prototyping, and we also are one of only two that I know of in the U.S. and from what I’m told only seven in the world that are investment casting magnesium,” said Ziemba. “T rough research and development here, we’ve managed to overcome the issues with metal mold reaction when it comes down to casting magnesium.” Aristo Cast has not patented its magnesium investment casting process. But, it is in the process of drawing up a licensing agreement with a magnesium company in Israel. Although magnesium has a reputa- tion for burning, the Elektron 21 magnesium alloy used in aircrafts has very low fl ammability, according to Ziemba. “It has just been approved for seat brackets in the Airbus,” he said. “And when it comes to aircraft, on say a 737, for every 500 lbs. of weight they can take out of that plane, they save a quarter million dollars’ worth of fuel. Magnesium
This automotive steering assist housing was converted from a sand cast aluminum part weighing 3.5 lbs. to a 2-lb. investment casting, cutting machining time in half and reducing lead time by four weeks.
This 2014 Best in Class winning electron- ics housing Aristo-Cast produced for Elbit Systems of America involved casting not only the magnesium part but the cavity for the wax injection necessary to produce it.
June 2014 MODERN CASTING | 19
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