Fontana Foundry

United States

Welcome to Southern California’s preeminent aluminum foundry, manufacturing aluminum castings for every kind of industry. We incorporate both sand casting and permanent mold (gravity die casting) methods to produce aluminum castings that surpass all our customer expectations. With our comprehensive experience, we can take your aluminum casting design or concept and bring it to culmination. If you need one or thousands of aluminum castings we can service all your requirements.

Aluminum casting involves pouring a liquid metal into a mold that contains a cavity of a detailed shape, and then is allowed to solidify. The solidified part is known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the casting process. Casting is most often used for making complex shapes that would be difficult or uneconomical to make by other techniques. In the aluminum casting process molding materials used can be sand or metal. The pouring methods used are gravity, vacuum, or low pressure.

An aluminum sand casting is a part produced by forming a mold from sand that is coated by a binder (either water or chemical). The cavity of the mold is formed by using a positive pattern of the part desired, ramming the sand around the pattern and then separating the pattern from the molded sand. Liquid aluminum is poured into the resulting cavity and left to solidify. After the metal has solidified the aluminum casting is extracted from the sand mold by breaking the molded sand. There are some cultures that permanent mold is referred to as gravity die casting.

A permanent mold casting is a part produced from a mold made from metal, usually cast iron or steel. The permanent mold has a negative cavity of the part desired. Liquid aluminum is poured into the cavity of the permanent mold and allowed to solidify. Once the aluminum has solidified the part is extracted from the mold. The permanent mold is then closed and the cycle starts again

Gravity die casting is a terminology used usually outside the United States to describe the Permanent Mold process. There is no difference between the processes.