Aluminum castings play an important role in products for a wide range of industries. These include aerospace, military, electronics, medical and dental instruments and food and dairy applications, to name just a few.

It is a material well-known for its high strength-to-weight ratio, which makes aluminum an ideal material for countless casting applications. Heat treating can be employed to give it greater strength, ductility, corrosion resistance, and machinability.

Aluminum Grades Used in Investment Casting

Aluminum Alloy 319 -- 319 contains around 6% Si and 3.5% copper and is often used for general low cost uses because of its excellent casting and machining characteristics.

We’re pleased to offer extensive sand-casting capabilities through our parent company, Sigma Electric Manufacturing Corp.

Sand casting uses relatively low-cost molds, thanks to sand’s inherent compactability, refractory nature and recyclability. Since it requires a relatively low investment, sand casting allows for quick tooling development and part changes at a reasonable cost, making it ideal for working through the evolutions of a part.

Green Sand Casting

The process is often called “green sand casting” because of the moisture content of the molding sand, which is generally made up of silica sand (both new and reclaimed), various bonding clays, carbonaceous materials and water. To create a mold, the prepared sand is compacted around a pattern that has the shape of the desired casting.

We are pleased to announce two very important changes to the leadership team of Sigma Electric, Avalon Precision Metalsmiths’ parent company.

After eight years of dedicated service and outstanding leadership, Viren Joshi has decided to retire as President & Chief Executive Officer effective January 18th, 2021. Sigma’s Board of Directors is grateful and honored that Viren has accepted its request to continue to remain actively involved with Sigma and will transition to a new role as Executive Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors effective January 18th. In this capacity, Viren will continue to serve as a board member and strategic advisor as Sigma prepares for its next exciting chapter of growth.

The Board of Directors and employees of Sigma would like to thank Viren for his leadership and all that he has done to build the company into the global leader that it is today. Since Viren joined Sigma in 2012, the company’s sales have almost tripled, while its manufacturing footprint has expanded from eight Indian facilities to seventeen world-class facilities across India, Mexico and the United States.

Avalon has always invested in our customers’ long-term needs. Rather than function as simple order-takers, we invest time in understanding the customer’s process and part.

We gather information on part volumes and requirements like surface finish, end market and necessary secondary processes. We stay engaged with the customer through production to find potential areas of cost and time savings.

Avalon Precision Metalsmiths was previously limited to our U.S-based investment casting capabilities. But now, thanks to our association with Sigma Electric, Avalon can support any casting needs our customers might have outside of the investment casting process.

Start by finding a full-service turnkey casting company that provides one-stop shopping for all your casting-related needs, including:

• Engineering excellence
• Prototyping
• Tool design & construction
• Secondary operations
• Supply chain management

Expertise and Experience

You want a casting company dedicated to being a long-term partner committed to building relationships, not just filling orders. A company that understands the importance of adding value to your product line and can assist with your new product development to not only produce a functional part but a part that processes more efficiently at less cost.  We can suggest changes that could reduce part weight, while adding features that eliminate machining and / or other secondary operations.

Precision investment casting is a refined manufacturing process that provides numerous advantages.

The process consists of several steps – creating an injected wax replica of the part, mounting the parts onto a sprue / tree and then forming a ceramic mold around the wax pattern. The wax is then melted out with steam and pressure and molten metal is poured into the heated ceramic shell.   The result is sacrificial tooling that allows for high part definition, both in ferrous and non-ferrous metals.

The aluminum wax dies offer substantially longer life than a high pressure die cast die or a plastic mold. Investment casting is a process that holds tighter tolerances than sand casting or the permanent mold process, while allowing for internal passages / undercuts to be cast in place along with superior surface finishes.  Overall, a process that affords many opportunities to reduce the overall cost of ownership.

-Avalon further strengthens Sigma's North American manufacturing footprint

-Avalon specializes in complex thin wall investment casting parts

GARNER, N.C., Aug. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sigma Electric Manufacturing Corporation ("Sigma") a leading global manufacturer of ferrous and non-ferrous castings, precision machined components and sub-assemblies, today announced the acquisition of US-based Avalon Precision Casting ("Avalon").

Headquartered in Cleveland, OH, with additional plants in Wisconsin, Avalon manufactures investment castings products for blue-chip customers in the aerospace, defense, HVAC, power, agriculture, and oil & gas end markets.

The combination of Avalon's investment castings capabilities and Sigma's global, market-leading casting and precision machining capabilities brings significant product sourcing, supply chain management, and scale opportunities to each company's customer base.  The combined business is well placed to be a valuable strategic partner as customers increasingly look to manage and streamline complex global supply chains and work with world-class casting suppliers with comprehensive product offerings across metal types and process capabilities.