Incorrect casting product design is one of the reasons why you end up producing faulty casting components. The communication language between casting product design engineer and casting component manufacturer is casting drawing.

The following five tips will help you in designing a good casting product and in preparing a correct casting drawing:

●      1. Deciding parting line: The parting line is the line around a casting component where two molds meet each other. The parting line should be decided by the casting component design engineer and should be shown in the casting drawing. Ideally, the position of the parting line should be such that the height of the mold box should be minimum, or, in other words, the draw distance of the mold box should be minimum.

●       2. Draft Angle: The draft angle of the casting component should be designed in such a way that easy removal of the pattern will be possible without disturbing the sand mold cavity. Giving 1 to 2 degrees of draft angle is standard practice for sand casting.

●      3. Uniform section thickness: A uniformly thick casting surface cools uniformly, and uniform cooling is the utmost requirement for getting a sound casting. Uniform cooling leads to stress-free and distortion-free casting. So, while designing casting components, all the sections should be kept as uniform as possible.

●      4. Gradual change in section: In case it is not at all possible to maintain uniform thickness at any area of your casting design, then make the change gradual rather than abrupt. Refer to the picture below:

●      5. Designing the junctions of uniform sections: Although the individual sections may be of uniform cross sections, the meeting points of these sections may become bulky in nature. You should take special care while designing such areas. One method of keeping the area similar to the remaining area is by creating a hole at centre like below:

The casting design tips discussed here will be handy for both sand casting as well as die casting design.