It’s not just the size of your Sprue that counts!

By: J. Tyler Teague 2009 SFS

This paper mainly represents a light hearted debate that Eddie Bell, myself, and others have been
having for about 20 plus years so far about the best shapes for the care and feeding of jewelry
castings. A small part of this debate has come from folks like Al Schaler and many others regarding
nomenclature and how to label various parts of a metal feeding system in the investment casting of
jewelry. I will touch on some of the nomenclature issues but instead of saying that this paper is the
authority on this subject (even though it is), I will just tell you what my definitions are for the sake of
understanding this paper and you can apply your own names and labels as you like. I will say that
regardless of the industry, these terms seem to be somewhat floating, situational, and variable
depending on whose opinion you are reading at the time.

As long as I can remember, I have been demanding and relentless on production model makers to
modify the interior of their models to fit the directional solidification ideal in order to prevent shrinkage
porosity issues. I never had a beef with anybody’s esthetics but I have been brutal when it comes to
the internal structure. I’m sure that there are many model departments with dart boards that have my
picture on them around the world.

In the last several years I have had much more work with designers and contract casters. The contract
casters typically cannot modify the models of the parts that they are sent to cast. The designers are
designing in marketing elements that while esthetically pleasing are challenging to cast. Since a global
conspiracy of model makers that are out to get just me is unlikely, I have had to adopt many new to
jewelry but old to foundry casting techniques in order to overcome these never ending design variations
for this different market. With recent economic issues in the USA, there has been some movement in
certain customer categories, away from all gold or platinum jewelry into mixed metal silver and gold,
palladium, and various other lower cost alternative metals and metal combinations. The designers
were and in many cases still are the main groups that embraced these metals. Their designs tend to
be heavier and more uniquely shaped. These shapes and weights present casting challenges to the
contractors that I want to address in this paper.
 The Gating System

Illustration (1a) Illustration (1b)

Common Industrial Casting and Jewelry Industry Terms:

According to the Foundry Glossary of Terms, the gating system is the complete assembly of Sprue
basin (button), sprues, feeders/runners, and gates in the mold. From this same source, our jewelry
industry term for the larger cavity formed by the sprue base aka, “button”, is called the pouring basin by
the rest of the world. Then the vertical central feed that extends from the pouring basin (button) is
called the sprue or main sprue. The more horizontal part that comes off the main sprue and continues
to carry molten metal towards the mold cavity is called a feeder or runner. The “feeder/runner” is the
part of the gating system that seems to cause the most controversy because some call this a sprue
while others call it a gate. To the industrial caster, it is neither. The term feeder is rarely used in the
jewelry industry. It is sometimes used to define an extra small path for molten metal feed. In this
paper, I will be using the term feeder or runner to describe this part of the feeding system.

Outside the jewelry industry, the gate is the junction or the small connection between the feeder and
the mold cavity. It is also sometimes called the ingate. In other texts this connection is called a choke
depending on the purpose. Typically the term “choke” is used when the shape of that junction is
designed to restrict the flow of the metal for a particular purpose. There has been a lot of discussion on
the use of the terms feeder, gate and sprue over the years but more important than what to call the
darn things is the reasoning about the size, shape, quantity, and location of them.

Goals of the Gating System:

Regardless of how you label your gating system you have four goals that directly affect your production
system and your profit margins. Here they are in order.

1. Get a good quality casting the first time

a. Fill the mold before the metal starts to solidify
b. Minimize turbulence to avoid trapping gasses and breaking off pieces of the mold.
c. Avoid shrinkage (both internal and surface) by properly feeding the casting with molten
metal.

2. Reduce successive labor as much as possible

a. You reduce labor by not creating defects in the first place.
b. Have the fewest feeder and riser connections that will yield a good casting.
c. Properly place and size the feeders and risers so that they can be removed with the
least effort.
 3. Reduce material costs as much as possible
a. Feeders and risers must be minimized but the first goal is to get a good casting the first
time. You can recycle the leftovers.
b. Consider the geometry of your flask when designing your gating system. If needed, this
will allow you to maximize the available space in the flask and reduce all costs.

4. Get paid for your efforts

a. If you must use large feeders, risers, or waste flask space to get a good casting, charge
accordingly.
b. Your time and experience is valuable. Designing a unique gating system for special
castings takes your time and experience. You have paid to learn so you must charge to
use it.
c. Even if you can recycle, you can only do that so many times before you must refine.
Refining is not cheap.

Responsibility:
The caster can only control a few of the variables that determine a good or bad casting. The caster can
control the burnout schedule, the flask temperature, and the metal temperature at the time of casting
(depending on your casting equipment). Hopefully the caster has some control on the quality of the
metal that is being used. Unfortunately, I often see the quality of the metal determined by
misappropriated labor and over zealous accountants. I have seen a lot of labor put into repairing bad
castings when less could have been spent on the model or properly recycling the metal pool.

The designer and the model maker have far more to do with casting quality than the caster. The
person that designs feeding system, the mold cutter, wax personnel, tree builder, and the person doing
the investing have a huge role in producing a good quality casting as well. For this paper my focus is
on the relationship between the wax or metal model, the sprue, feeders, gates, risers, and vents to
profitable casting.

1. Get a good quality casting the first time

Modifying Velocity:
In many previous papers, it has been shown that using cool flask temperatures will improve the surface
quality of your castings with all other factors being taken into consideration. The problem arises when
you need a cool flask temperature in order to get a nice surface but because of the way you are feeding
metal into your flask you can’t get the parts to fill. Simply put, if the casting doesn’t fill, it doesn’t count
regardless of how nice the metal may look. On the other hand, if you have a complete casting that has
so much shrinkage porosity and other defects that it cannot be finished for a profit, then that doesn’t
count either.

A requirement to use the coolest flask temperature is that you must move a lot of metal through the
feeder and into the part cavity quickly and smoothly. You could just use a large feeder however large
feeders can make separating the part from the feeder very difficult. Also, depending on your wax
injection equipment oversized or additional feeders can cause problems with cold flow lines in the
waxes and other process issues.
 (f1) (f2) (f3)

v = velocity, g = gravity, z = elevation, h = head

Head Pressure:
A Swiss scientist from the 1700s named Daniel Bernoulli described laws of fluid dynamics and
incompressible fluids. It wasn’t long after that that Eddie Bell and Neutec came up with the Neusprue
system for the main sprue of the gating system. This is not an advertisement, but the facts are the
facts. Some of the facts behind Eddie’s sprue system are that because of its tapered shape and if the
pour hole of the casting machine is lined up well with the sprue opening, then there is little or no contact
with the mold cavity to cause friction or turbulence until the metal reaches the bottom of the mold cavity.
The illustration (f1), represents “speed” and describes the bulk motion of a fluid, (kinetic energy), aka
(inertia), from the bottom of the crucible into the mold cavity. Because of the minimized friction and
turbulence this is enhanced will improve fill rates using this type of central sprue. Once it reaches the
bottom z = 0, then we express it as “Head or velocity head” illustration (f2). As the metal flows into the
mold cavity it is expressed as a length measurement which is called the “hydraulic head”, illustration
(f3). Basically what hydraulic head represents is the pressure at a given point in the gating system
based on the force of gravity at elevation and the density of the liquid.

Illustration (1C)

Head pressure is relative to the height of the liquid metal in the sprue but not the shape or volume of it.
This type of pressure improves fill disproportionately with the most pressure being on parts at the
deepest part of the sprue and decreasing back towards the pour basin. The pressure at the bottom of
each of the shapes displayed in Illustration (1C), is the same regardless of the shape of the cavity in the
flask or the volume of metal in it.

So for casting in a non-pressurized system and as long as the sprue solidifies last, diameter is not such
a big deal but length is. That is why that you sometimes have non-fills at the end of the tree near the
pour basin on the same styles that filled farther away from the pour basin on the same tree. Random
non-fills are a completely different subject and I covered both of these subjects in a previous SFS
paper.

Hydrostatic Pressure
(Illustration F4)

• P is the hydrostatic pressure (Pa);

• ρ is the liquid density (kg/m3);
• g is gravitational acceleration (m/s2);
• h is the height of liquid above (m);
• Pa is the atmospheric or applied pressure (Pa).

Another fellow named Blaise Pascal described the laws of pressurized fluids best in the 1600s. Once
the liquid metal is in the flask then pressure is applied, it is called “Hydrostatic head”, illustration (f4).
This is defined as the pressure at a given depth in a static liquid is a result the weight of the liquid
acting on a unit area at that depth plus any pressure acting on the surface of the liquid. Without the
better pressure assist casting equipment, you only have the ambient pressure of 1 atmosphere.

If you have a casting machine that can pressurize the area above the molten metal in the pour basin or
sprue then you get the benefits of Pascal’s laws of hydraulics. Pascal’s law of liquid pressure says that
changes in pressure (isotropic pressure), to a contained fluid will exert the same pressure to all points
on the interior of that container illustration (F4). I have talked about this before in previous talks but it is
very relevant to the subject of fill rates and feeder design later in this paper. If the gating system is
designed properly, this pressure aids in fill, casting detail, and reduced shrinkage. If you don’t have this
type of equipment, then you must rely on the height of your main sprue only.

In the case of the tapered central sprue and a pressurized casting machine, there is no real velocity
benefit from the round conical shape of the Neusprue once the sprue is full because at the end of the
sprue is typically nothing but the end of the sprue. At this point, the hydrostatic pressure is even at all
points in the mold cavity. It does however have all the previously mentioned benefits like low friction
and turbulence, as well as enhancing ideal progressive solidification of the metal in the mold.

Feeder Shapes:
While the round conical Neusprue system is the optimum system for the main sprue of a casting tree.
Up to this point I had never been satisfied with how a round shape affected my castings at the
feeder/part interface (gate). Nearly all of the factories that I worked with were producing high volumes
of light weight gold, platinum, or silver parts. Round sprues often caused defects for me and being a
lazy man, I was generally against any kind of extra labor or repair. Most of these companies had used
the old fashioned 3mm round piece of brass rod to the model and that was to be the feeder.

Illustration (2a) Illustration (2b)

For years jewelry manufacturers have used simple round feeders on their models similar to illustration
(2a) with varying success. Back in the day, about 30+ years ago I would simply take this same 3 -
4mm piece of brass brazing rod and hammer a tapered flare on one end and then shape a radius on it
to fit the curve of the ring shank that I was attaching it to, illustration (2b). I knew from experience that
when I simply attached a round piece of brazing rod to my models that I would often get porosity at the
center or around the gate on my casting. Before I knew of Nicolas Chvorinov and his surface area to
volume laws of cooling, I at least knew that most of the time I would sometimes get a hole at the
junction of my 3mm round feeder and the shank on my castings.

My term and common industry term for this defect was a hot spot or pulling a core. I discovered that by
changing the shape of the end of the feeder to a flatter flared oval geometry, the fill rate was similar but
the hot spot went away. It seemed logical that this modified shape would also help direct the metal flow
in a flared fashion and that would help get the metal to the top of the rings faster. I wasn’t really thinking
about turbulence or anything very complicated, just that it had fewer defects and that was a good thing.

Most of the debate between Eddie and me has centered on the shape of feeders. More often than not,
our debate has been related to the sprue on a ring but not always as you will see later. Both of our
opinions seemed to morph over time but the crux of it was that I favored the round feeder that flared a
good bit to a fairly extreme oval at the point where it connected to the part, (gate), and from what I
remember; Eddie favored a feeder shape that remained more round. Like I mentioned before, at some
point in one of our “discussions” Eddie started talking about tapered sprue shapes, pressure
relationships to depth, and other crazy things that did not seem related to jewelry. These discussions
are what led me to read up on several things that I probably should have paid closer attention to in my
school daze.

Illustration (F2)

After many discussions and a lot of personal research on how the many laws of physics affected
investment casting, it became my focus in life. The recorded use of hydraulics (pressure of liquid in
motion), dates back the first century AD but Blaise Pascal is the one that held my interest the most.
Hydraulics is used for the generation, control, and transmission of power by the use of pressurized
incompressible liquids. The second is Velocity which is the rate of change in position of an object and
in our case, liquid. Both speed and direction are required to define velocity. In formula (F2), V
represents the average velocity of an object moving through a displacement represented by (delta x), in
a time interval (delta t).

So I started to apply this new information to my feeder shapes. I needed to get a lot of metal
into the cavity in a very short amount of time. You get the velocity change benefits from the tapered
shape of the feeder and gate that connects the sprue to the casting as filling is occurring. As the
molten metal is entering the feeder and moving towards the gate and casting the speed (velocity),
increases proportionally as the cross section of the feeder decreases.

Illustration (2c)

Illustration (2c), shows my second generation and my first divergence after my flared end 3mm brass
rod feeders. This shape evolved from my desire to increase the volume of metal flow into the mold
cavity by increasing velocity and to modify the direction of the metal flow up the ring shanks towards the
top of the ring as many of us had done with the flared brass rod. This shape included a feeder, a
choke, and a gate.
 Illustration (2d)

I did not know this at the time but this shape is very similar to something known as a “de Laval nozzle”
illustration (2d). This shape is common on rocket engines in order to change subsonic flow to
supersonic flow. Probably not the best design for trying to cast with the least turbulent flow. While I did
get better fill results due to the increase in volume of metal that I could put into the cavity in a given
amount of time the more I learned about turbulent flow, the less I liked this shape.

Illustration (2e) Illustration (2f)

As is pictured in Illustration (2e, and 2f), these tapered feeders worked similarly to (2c) by increasing
the velocity of the molten metal. The cross sectional area of the 5mm round end of the feeder is
19.635mm2, and the cross sectional area of the 2 X 4.5mm gate is 7.069mm2 so that means that
velocity has increased 2.77 times. Another way to say this is that you can move about 2.77 times as
much metal through this tapered feeder and gate as you could through a straight 3mm feeder (cross
sectional surface area is a constant 7.069mm2), in the same amount of time. There is more to it than
that because friction, heat exchange, and back pressure must be factored in but even so, it is obvious
that the tapered feeder has superior fill capability.

The difference between (2c) and (2e and F) was that I increased velocity but minimized turbulence by
eliminating the choke. In doing this, I still directed the flow up the shank with greater velocity, I
eliminated the hot spots, and this is where I am for typical production ring castings. For production
rings there is still one small modification that I sometimes use. In the rare case that I still develop a hot
spot I alter my flared sprue with a dimple (Illustration (2f).

An Epiphany:
Like I said earlier, most of my experience up until the last 5 or 6 years has been in high production
casting. Designing models and metal feed systems that could produce 10,000 of the same item with
the least defects in the shortest amount of time with the highest profit margin was my target. My
definition of least defects meant LITTLE OR NO VISIBLE SURFACE DEFECTS. We weren’t making
heart valves or jet turbine blades.

I was all into directional solidification, Chvorinov, Pascal, and have done papers and taught hundreds of
model makers how to design the inside of a model to facilitate directional solidification all the way back
to the shank. At that point, my goal had not been to necessarily eliminate porosity in the shank; it was
to keep it from being seen. Heck, if I could have cast rings with a hollow center without using water
soluble wax then I would have been a rich man. Further, my goal was to have the least number of
sprue connections to reduce the labor of sprue removal, reduce the amount of metal required for
sprues, etc… I did this for many companies, I saved them millions of dollars, I still teach this method,
and it does work well for this type of product.

Recently, I have had to change the methods that I am teaching because I am working with a lot more
contract casters, smaller production shops, and designers these days than I am production factories.
They aren’t necessarily trying to make jewelry items that float. A real wake up call for me came many
years ago from a caster in Providence RI named Robert Rautenstrauch (aka Rauty) who was casting
some very heavy flat sterling silver parts. I had never had a situation before to be casting such large
parts in sterling silver. These parts were for a very picky customer so the quality of the surface was a
huge deal. His company had called me in to improve the quality of these sterling castings because
they were having a problem with “dark spots”. I had looked at some of the problem castings and knew
that these dark spots were actually areas where gas and shrinkage porosity issues were allowing
copper rich phases in the grain structure to form because of how the casting was cooling. I came in
thinking that this would be a quick fix because I knew the system temperatures that they were using
were high, some of their operating procedures needed improvement, but I wanted to make sure that
there were no other contributing issues. I came in, applied what I had always done as far as procedure
cleanup, system temperature optimization, and spruing but it only had a very limited improvement. I
was perplexed.

My technique on “heavy castings”, up to this point was to get the flask temperature as low as possible,
feed the metal in quickly while keeping the turbulence to a minimum and to direct the cooling towards
the feed. What I had found in my previous experience was that if the sprue was what my concept of too
round or large, it would create a hot spot under the sprue and there would always be porosity at this
point at the junction of the part and sprue. It was logical since that area would have the greatest mass
and would also be connected to the main sprue where the molten metal entered the mold. The heat
from the main sprue combined with what I thought was a large feed sprue always caused me problems.
In many production cases, I used my latest tapered volume, flared feeder to get a high volume of metal
into the mold cavity fast but then I wanted the feed sprue to cool before the heavier cross section of the
casting. By using this method of a faster feed and a very cold flask temperature, the casting would
quickly form a solid shell at the metal mold interface and any shrinkage would be driven deep into the
casting and away from the gate/part interface. This method has worked well for many years on much
of the standard commercial jewelry that I had been making. Unfortunately, it was not working for these
extremely heavy designer styles.

By reducing the flask temperature I did get some improvements in the surface but not to a satisfactory
level for this company. Finally Rauty said that he thought that my “very large” feeders were just too
damn small. Initially I was floored and I thought he was crazy. Unfortunately tests proved that he was
right. I was applying lighter weight production methods to heavy weight designer parts and it just didn’t
fly. What I had thought was large was actually far too small for the goals of this product. I could not
bury shrinkage in these large flat parts in the center of the casting and especially not in sterling. I had
to get the porosity out of the casting entirely. These things were heavy and the relative geometry was
flat and smooth. My standard production jewelry methods would not work. I had to develop new
jewelry methods for large heavy products. The weird thing was that my new jewelry methods were old
foundry methods that were as old as dirt. My head had been too far inside the box to pay attention to
the obvious. I had been aiming for the wrong target.

What finally dawned on me was that depending on the metal, the size and shape of the product, the
customer, and the quality goal, Chvorinov’s rule, just wasn’t adequate to really design and predict the
feeders and risers for these castings.
More Common Foundry but Uncommon Jewelry Industry Terms:
This section is mainly what this paper is all about. It is these methods that are not commonly used in
jewelry casting but might improve your casting quality and reduce your labor costs. These new ideas
will not do much to improve your part to scrap ratio but if you are running a clean casting system, you
can continue to reuse the extra metal that is required to use these techniques.

Risers:
The use of risers by contract casters or by folks casting large designer jewelry is an incredibly useful
tool. A riser’s purpose is to act as a reservoir of feed metal that is designed to prevent cavities due to
shrinkage as metal cools. There are many names for risers based on where they are placed on a
casting. Basically there are two types of risers. Open risers by definition are open to the atmosphere
as is depicted in illustration (3a). Blind risers illustration (3b) are not open to the atmosphere and are
the type that I most often use in casting unique jewelry parts.

Open Riser Blind Riser

illustration (3a) illustration (3b)

The examples above are a simulation of some very large bracelet parts that I was asked to cast. Each
of the 2 parts of this one bracelet weighed over 250 grams sterling each. I knew immediately that my
production sprue methods would not work. I didn’t have a wax wire or rod that was large enough to
cast this part well. Not even coming directly off a Neusprue was big enough. I actually had a machine
shop machine a riser model in brass that matched this part. I made a mold of that and poured some
wax from the drain of the wax pot to make my riser. This riser measured 13mm at the small end by
20mm at the large end and was 40mm long.

In most jewelry gate systems, the pour basin and then the sprue empty into the feeder. It was the
same in this case except the feeder attached to the riser instead of to the part. This is perfectly ok and
sometimes, this is the best answer. From the point of view of definition, this is where the terminology
between feeder, runner, and riser get cloudy.

Illustration (3c )

I chose the open riser configuration to cast these large parts because there was so much metal trying
to reach equilibrium with the gypsum investment I wanted to provide every opportunity for gas liberation
as it evolved. The riser was attached to the heaviest section of the bracelet in a way to take full
advantage of gravity for flow, head pressure, gas liberation, and wax drainage. As the metal entered
the cavity, the feeder slowed down and smoothed out the metal flow to reduce turbulence. I used
enough metal to assure that when equilibrium was reached in the metal flow, the risers would have
sufficient metal to feed the casting until the casting was completely solidified. The investment mold did
crack because the parts were an RP material that expanded more than my investment could handle.
The flask was about 200oF at casting and the metal was 930oC. On the good side, there was no
shrinkage porosity in the casting. There were some small investment inclusions from the RP surface
and the mold cracking. There was no shrinkage in the parts and especially under or around the risers
as you can see in illustration (3c).

Blind Risers for Jewelry

illustration (4a) illustration (4b)

illustration (4c) illustration (4d)

The type of riser that I will be mainly discussing for this paper are blind risers. Under both categories of
risers there are two sub-classes of risers. There are hot or live risers and cold or dead risers. A hot
riser is one where the metal is fed into the casting through the riser and the riser is the last part to
receive hot metal. A cold or dead riser is one that is located away from the feed metal and will fill as
the casting fills but has no feed metal after that.

I chose to make models for this paper that were different than the typical step wedge and other
standard models previously used. I decided on two models that I felt represented styles that tend to
give casters the most trouble. The heavy shoulder model can represent signet rings and things like
that. The cathedral ring is a difficult design depending on the metal you are asked to cast it in.

Risers are especially useful when you have multiple heavy sections in a part with thin areas in between
them. In a perfect world, only one of the heavy sections should have a feeder attached. If you have a
heavy casting then it is likely that filling is not a problem. Adding extra feeders complicates the casting
and typically won’t do as much good as a riser.
 Illustration (4e)

You will notice that in all cases of (3a) and (3b) the configuration would allow the wax to drain easily so
as not to cause erosion of the mold cavity by pooling wax. This is an important issue as you can see by
Illustration (3h). In this case the feeder was attached to the part and the flask was tilted in a way that
would not allow the wax to drain from the cavity during burnout. It is very easy to see the area where
the wax pooled and eroded the mold surface. You will also notice in illustration (3f) that there is a small
wire running from the riser downward. This small wire was there to drain the wax from the riser only. It
had nothing to do with filling or venting during casting. It’s sole purpose was as a wax drain.

illustration (5a) illustration (5b) illustration (5c)

Another way to use risers on large bracelet parts is to put them on the feeder itself illustration (5a).
With this type of situation I make the mold to inject from the top of the mold instead of from the side,
illustration (5B). It requires a tool that can be used to punch out the center where the wax was fed into
the mold but it does make it easy to build a tree, illustration (5C). You can see by illustration (5c) that
the wax will drain well out of the tree.

Illustration ( )

Vents:
A vent is a small opening through which gases can escape during the pouring of a mold. Vents are
typically open to the outside but are attached to the sprue base in a way so that metal from the pour
basin/button does not enter that cavity as the metal is poured. In investment casting of difficult
geometries, vents can also be used to drain wax from areas where wax would pool during burnout and
could cause erosion of the mold cavity. Risers and vents are great tools that you can use to improve
your casting quality.

General Guidelines for feeders and gates:

1. Feed into the thickest part of the casting. This promotes differential cooling (Directional
Solidification)
2. Avoid sharp corners. These cause turbulence and can break off pieces of the mold and
wash them into the mold.
3. Use the fewest number of feeders possible to fill the casting. (Use alternate feeding
methods)
4. Be sure the feeder has a greater cross section than the cross section of the area where the
gate contacts the casting. (at least 1.25 times is safe, more is better)
5. Thick areas of the casting that cannot be fed from the main feeder should have a method to
feed them.

All of the above goals and guidelines seem fairly well known and standard for jewelry casting these
days, I hope. Things that are not standard for the jewelry industry are how to do #3 under Goals of the
Gating System by using #3 and #5 under General Guidelines. I will briefly touch on all 3 goals of a
gating system but I will spend the most time on #3.

Goal 1:
a. Fill the mold before the metal starts to solidify
i. Match your part geometry and the properties of the metal you are using with your system
temperatures to optimize casting quality.
ii. Your system temperatures and your part geometry will dictate the size and shape of your
feeders and gates.
iii. With the gate size and cross section being equal, a feeder with a larger cross section
than the gate at the origin off the main sprue will fill a casting faster than a straight
feeder with the same cross section as the gate at the origin. (Tapered feeders)
iv. Use the fewest properly sized feeders possible to fill the casting.
1. What are often considered to be fill enhancing small extra feeders are actually
heat sinks that hinder part filling. These small feeders / heat sinks can transfer
heat out of the metal feed and into the mold mass more quickly than if they had
not existed.
2. If you are lucky, these small feeders may act as vents that relieve back pressure
if the initial metal stream bypasses as the casting fills. So while you may
 experience better fill rates, the reason could be pressure relief and not extra
metal flow.
3. It is better to plan to use vents and to know why and how your geometry is
beneficial.

Goal 2:
b. Minimize turbulence to avoid trapping gasses and breaking off pieces of the mold.
i. Galileo followed by Newton’s concepts of inertia loosely interpreted states that molten
metal entering a cavity will continue to flow in one direction unless it runs into something
and is forced to change directions to fill the cavity. Being forced to flow backwards or
making radical direction changes is called turbulence. Attach feeders to your parts in
such a way that the fluid flow is as smooth and as singularly directional as possible.
ii. Tapered feeder shapes are great ways to increase the amount of molten metal that can
be injected into the mold cavity in a given amount of time. This same property can
create turbulence depending on the shape of the gate. High pressure metal flows
passing through a restricted gate can actually spray molten metal into a cavity causing
erosion of the mold surface, gas entrapment, and cooling related defects
iii. Back pressure of gasses trapped in a mold cavity can cause turbulence resulting in non
fill. The use of vents that connect the farthest or most restricted point of a casting to the
outside of the flask in the vicinity of the sprue basin will relieve back pressure and allow
molten metal to more freely enter the casting. Because of equilibrium and the rate of
heat exchange of the metal and the surface of a small vent, the molten metal will not
likely exit the vent.

Chvorinov’s rule

2. Goal 3: (This is the fun part)

a. Avoid shrinkage (both internal and surface) by properly feeding the casting with molten metal.
In my new focus on the world of designer jewelry and contract casting, the choice of
guiding the heaviest part of a ring design to be the shank no longer exists. Simply
attaching the feeder and gate to the heaviest part of a casting is still a good goal but
esthetic and variable geometry considerations often require creative solutions. Many
designers and artist are not hip to Chvorinov or things related to directional solidification
and since they are not doing their own casting, they often don’t care to know.

Most of the literature on the feeding of castings has mainly been concerned with two feeding rules of
castings. The first one was based on Chvorinov’s rule of heat transfer and was that the feeder must
solidify at the same time or later than the casting. The second was that the feeder must contain
sufficient liquid to meet the volume contraction (shrinkage), of the casting. There are other things that
must also be considered and I will take a bit from John Campbell’s book (Casting Practice: The 10 rules
of Castings) and translate it into jewelry speak for this paper.

Seven rules of feeding a casting:

1. Do not feed unless it is necessary. (Use the fewest number of feeders possible)
2. The freezing time of the feeder must be at least as long as the freezing time of the casting.
3. The feeder must contain sufficient liquid to meet the volume contraction (shrinkage), of the
casting
4. The junction (gate) of a casting must be of the proper size and shape so as not to cause a
hot spot.
5. There must be a feed path that will allow feed metal to reach regions that require it.
 6. There must be sufficient pressure differential to cause the feed material to flow into the
casting as needed.
7. There must be sufficient pressure at all points in the casting to ensure dimensional accuracy
and to suppress the formation of cavities.

extra sprues

1. Do not feed unless it is necessary:

This is a common problem in the jewelry industry and it is mostly unrecognized. Many model makers
and casters in the jewelry business mistakenly add heat sinks and pressure reducers on to their
models. That is not what they are trying to do but that is the result. Adding extra feeders that are
improperly sized, to the wrong part of a model can cause more harm than good. Most of the “extra
feeders” that I have seen are not only the wrong size, they are just unnecessary. The idea is that they
help feed molten metal parts of a casting that seem to be difficult to fill. Most people would be
surprised to see that in tests, (Illustration XXX), that very often; these extra feeders are not increasing
feed rates, but are often acting as heat sinks and decreasing fill rates. Many of these extra feeders are
put on by habit rather than as a result of testing. Unnecessary feeders can also reduce the pressure of
the metal flow in the main feeder and that too can reduce fill rates. I absolutely expect many people in
this presentation to tell me that when they add these small feeders that they get better fill rates on their
waxes and castings. Depending on the size, shape, and angle of attachment of these extra feeders,
they may aid in the filling of difficult parts but in a different way than they think. Who cares as long as it
works, right? Hmmmm??? I would say it is better to know what you are doing and why you are doing
it.
Illustration of big feeder and risers
Sphere with larger sphere feeder and smaller gate
Cathedral ring with sprue and 2 risers
Cathedral ring with 1 feeder and 1 riser
Possibly illustrate large bracelet casting with mondo feeder/ gate

2. The freezing time of the feeder must be at least as long as the freezing time of the casting:
As I found out with Rauty back in the day, if you really need to pull the shrinkage out of a casting, then
the feeder and risers must be of the right shape and size to cool last and feed metal into the casting
during solidification. The gate that connects the feeder and the risers to the casting must also be well
designed so that they do not cool too quickly and restrict the flow of metal between the feeders, risers,
and the casting.

Possibly illustrate cathedral rings with risers that are too small and just right
Pictures of sections of said cathedral rings or test samples

3. The feeder and riser must contain sufficient liquid to meet the volume contraction
(shrinkage), of the casting
If your feeder or more importantly your riser is not big enough, you could pull the shrinkage back
through the gate and into the surface of the casting due to lack of metal volume in the riser. Usually in
jewelry casting, the feeder will be attached to the central sprue and if you aren’t doing something crazy,
the volume of metal and heat will be there to provide feed material as the casting cools. If you are
casting centrifugally and trying to be ultra cheap, then you may run into this problem if your patterns
come directly off the button and you are trying to cast with insufficient button material. Sometimes your
feeder is serving the purpose of a riser and that is where these two terms sometimes get confused. It is
possible to use a feeder that is smaller than a riser in order to fill a casting. If because of some design
considerations you cannot feed into the heaviest section of the casting you need to have some form of
riser attached to that heavy area to prevent shrinkage in that heavy section.
4. The junction (gate) of a casting must be of the proper size and shape so as not to cause a hot
spot.
This is the problem that I described earlier when companies often used the 3mm straight brass brazing
rod as feeders on their models. Depending on the size and shape of the shank, the diameter of the
main sprue, and the length of the feeder, these round feeders often caused a hole to form in the center
of the junction (gate), of the feeder and the part. By hammering a flare onto my 3mm brazing rod, I
was increasing the surface area as compared to the volume of metal passing through that flared shape.
This caused my gate to freeze before the casting and the feeder so the shrinkage occurred inside of
both parts but not at the junction of the two. This same thing was occurring in my second generation
rocket nozzle feeder but I was at least getting my parts to fill faster and at lower temperatures because
of the increased velocity of the tapered shape. It was not until my current production shape that my
feeders probably got properly designed and big enough to actually pull the porosity out of the shanks.

Possibly illustrate casting a plate with a rod feeder

5. There must be a feed path that will allow feed metal to reach regions that require it.

Illustrate a large casting with insufficient metal to fill with equilibrium

Grid fill picture

6. There must be sufficient pressure differential to cause the feed material to flow into the
casting as needed.

Illustration of class ring model and sprue

7. There must be sufficient pressure at all points in the casting to ensure complete fill,
dimensional accuracy, and to suppress the formation of cavities.

The five goals for profitable castings are:

1. Fill the casting

2. Reduce or eliminate visible porosity
3. Reduce or eliminate inclusions
4. Minimize material costs
5. Minimize production (finishing) labor