| Sand Casting | Investment Casting |
|---|
| 1) Limitations over complex shapes and designs can be produced. | 1) More complex shapes such as gas turbine casting can produce as compared to sand casting. |
| 2) Requires more machining to the finished parts as compared to investment casting. | 2) Requires less machining of the finished parts. |
| 3) It is a non-precession casting process. | 3) It is a precession casting process. |
| 4) The steps required for producing the final pattern are less. As the only pattern used | 4) The steps required for producing final investment casting are more. |
| 5) The steps involved in producing sand casting are the production of sand mould, pattern and final casting. | 5) The steps involved in producing investment casting die mould production, wax pattern making, ceramic mould making and then final casting. |
| 6) Sand casting has lower accuracy, surface finish and dimensional tolerance. | 6) Investment casting has higher accuracy, surface finish and dimensional tolerance. |
| 7) The surface finish obtained from sand casting process is of low quality and has some open pores because of gases trapped. | 7) A higher surface finish is obtained using investment casting process giving better surface quality. |
| 8) No limitation over the size of the casting product, large-size casting can be easily produced using skin-dried and dry moulding at low cost. | 8) There are limitations over the size of the casting product, larger-size castings are difficult to produce. |
| 9) Difficult to mass-produce casting in higher volume. | 9) The rate of production of casting is higher than sand casting as mould can be made in a short cycle time. |
| 10) The casting yield is less for this process as the runner, riser and sprue sections have higher metal content. | 10) Casting yield is more for this process. |
| 11) Heavier secondary manufacturing processes are required after casting is taken out of the sand mould. | 11) A secondary manufacturing process required is less for final casting because the refractory ceramic mould gives better quality casting than sand mould. |
| 12) Final casting has a non-accurate net shape. | 12) Net shape casting is accurate. |
