Rimer Enterprises offers complete investment casting capabilities

 Casting Stainless Steel In the fabrication of precise and intricate metal shapes, thisprocess offers tool & die makers, machine shops and theircustomers superior finishing plus significant savings of time,material and labor. Rimer Enterprises, Inc., is now offering complete http://www.rimerinc.com/ [investment casting capabilities, to create "near netshape" parts of virtually any metal, even in very lowquantities. An increasing number of shops that make metal partsthat are intricate, or require extensive machining, are producedrepetitively or in limited quantities, are finding it to be theideal solution. This process offers broad flexibility of alloys while savingfinishing time and material waste, while it also enables you tocombine two or more parts into a single piece, saving onfabrication, welding or assembly and machining time. The range ofmetals and alloys that can be investment-cast is very broad,including low cost alloys such as carbon and many tool steels orcostly alloys such as aluminum, stainless steel, hastalloy, cobaltand Inconel. When it comes to making metal parts, investment casting can providea surprisingly high return on investment for your shop andcustomers. It is an ideal process for those who deal withfabrication or use metal parts repetitively, whether intricateshapes or components that require precise tolerances. If thoseparts are between one ounce and 30 pounds in weight, they can beinvestment cast in remarkably close tolerances with surfaces thatrequire little finishing. As opposed to forming parts from bar metal, it is also beneficialfor fabricators who want to combine components into a single piece,or use pricey metals and want to avoid wasted material whileminimizing machine time, which can run $85 to $100 per hourincluding machine cost. "I suppose that some fabricators look at the somewhat higherinitial cost and don't realize all the savings in time andmaterials of this process, saving money in the long run. Plus theycan produce a better part," says Carl Johnson Jr., vicepresident of Staten Island Machine Shop Inc. (Staten Island, NY). Johnson, whose shop produces metal shafts as well as plate andsheet metal, explains that the stainless shafts he fabricates inrelatively small lots are investment-cast rather than cut from barstock or formed by sand casting and then finished. "For one thing, in this part of the country it is becomingdifficult to find qualified machinists," Johnson says."There are few machinists or CNC operators coming out of theschools today, and that - as well as the cost of equipment andlabor - has become a problem for many machine shops. To an extent, investment casting alleviates this problem, because it eliminates some of the burdenof machining." Several years ago Staten Island Machine Shop began having some ofthe parts they previously had sand cast instead supplied by RimerEnterprises (Waterville, OH), that serves a variety of industriesranging from railroad to food processing.