The sprue System Design

A very high percentage of investment casting defects can be directly or

indirectly attributed to the design of the sprue system feeding metal to
the pattern. Defects such as incomplete pattern filling and shrinkage
porosity are easily identified as directly related to poor sprue design.

Gas porosity might be caused by a poor burnout but it could also be

caused by casting at a higher than necessary temperature. And the
elevated temperature could be necessary for complete pattern filling
through an inadequate sprue system; this is an example of the sprue
system indirectly causing a defective casting.

The Rule of Thumb and Best

Practice
The rules of good practice are not well defined when it comes to sprues
in jewelry casting. We say the main sprue needs to be larger than the
feeds sprue and the cross sectional area of the feed sprue should be
between 70 and 150% (depending on who you read) of the attachment
point on the pattern and be attached to the pattern at its thickest
section.

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In practice, this guideline is almost useless except to warn us not to

make feed sprues any smaller than they have to be and still there are
exceptions. Some of the literature calls for the feed sprue to be as short
as possible, but in the case of very large feed sprues feeding very thick
patterns, it is written that lengthening the feed sprue can solve
subsurface porosity.

There is general agreement that the junction between the feed sprue
and the pattern should be filleted to smooth the flow of liquid metal and
reduce investment erosion; however, there is much disagreement about
how great the fillet should be and the transition shape. Some prefer the
shape of the feed sprue to flare out widely at the junction and some
think that such a wide flare is harder to cut and clean up and not
otherwise necessary to get a sound casting. The latter group prefers a
small fillet and little or no transition. Both groups seem to make good
castings.

Fortunately, the casting process seems to be forgiving and allows

jewelry casters great latitude when it comes to sprue design and
placement. I think that every experienced caster has seen sound
castings made with sprues that in theory should not have worked.
Unfortunately, this has lead some casters to throw out the theory
altogether though they may become very frustrated when a sprue that
works on one pattern does not work on another.

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Terminology
Another thing jewelry casters have not come to agreement on is what to
call the various parts of a cast tree. A few years ago, in a presentation at
the Santa Fe Symposium, Albert Schaler did one of his many services for
the jewelry caster by bringing to our attention that we should not use
the word sprue to name more than one part in a cast tree. He drove the
point home by insisting that we all call the feed between the main sprue
and the pattern the GATE, and we all had some fun ribbing anyone who
called it a sprue thereafter.

However, now I believe we have created a new confusion. Mr. Schaler is

not wrong, because the gate belongs in the feed sprue between the
main sprue and the pattern, but giving something a name does not
make it so. Technically, the gate controls the flow of metal and is called
a gate because when it freezes it is closed and no more metal can pass
that point. Gates will be discussed in more detail later, but now I want to
get back to defining terms.

Figure 1 shows a tree, as we would build it for finger rings. The funnel-
shaped opening in the investment mold forms the Sprue Button and that
is always described as the bottom of the tree even if it is facing up. Of
course, the opposite end is always the top of the tree. The trunk of the
tree is called the Sprue or Main Sprue. The limb (branch) of the tree is
called a Feed Sprue and the object of the casting is called the Pattern.
There are also Runners and Secondary Sprues, but we can address them
later.

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What is the Best Shape for a

Sprue and Feed Sprue?
The purpose of the sprue system is to hold the wax patterns in place
until the wax tree is invested and then provide a route for that wax to
drain out of the invested mold. After the burnout, the sprue system
provides the conduit for the metal to get to the pattern cavities and its
design controls how much turbulence andtemperature loss the liquid
metal will experience along the way.

Turbulence is the enemy of casters. Turbulence can cause the metal to

entrain gas and speeds temperature loss. While turbulence cannot be
avoided altogether, we need to do whatever we can to minimize it. We
can learn from industrial and dental casting that tapered sprues are best
from the standpoint of reducing turbulence. A ratio of 1.1:1 for straight
sprues and 1.3:1 for bent sprues are said to be adequate to reduce
turbulence. The transition from the sprue button to the main sprue will
either induce turbulence or reduce it, depending on the design, Figure 2.
Round sprues are the best geometry because they will convey the metal
with less temperature loss than any other shape of equal weight.

A few years ago, some simple experiments were carried out to help
understand the fluid dynamics of feed sprues. Two 3 mm tubes were
produced and attached to the end of a pipe. One tube was 3mm inside
from end to end and the other was squashed flat on one end to mimic a
sprue that had been hammered to a flat taper, Figure 3.

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The pipe was filled with water and the time for the water to pour out of
each tube was measured. The round tube drained the water in 21
seconds and the flattened tube drained the same amount of water in 38
seconds. So the round sprue allowed 45% more fluid through than the
flattened sprue could in the same time. If we think about how the metal
freezes we can imagine that the solidification starts at the interface with
the investment on all sides and progresses inward to a point farthest
from the surface. If the narrowest section of the flattened sprue were 1
mm and to keep the problem simple we said the rate of solidification
was 1 mm per second, then it would take the flattened sprue one half
second and the round sprue two and a half seconds to freeze solid.
These are rough numbers, but they indicate that the 3 mm round sprue
will allow a pattern to fill in almost half the time the flattened sprue
would require and that the round sprue stays open about five times as
long. That is an impressive difference, but why is it important for the
sprue to stay open a long time, doesn’t the metal stop flowing as soon
as the pattern cavity is completely filled? The answer is yes and no: in
the first stage, the liquid metal completely fills the pattern cavity and it
does stop flowing, because all the space is occupied.

But there is a physical property to the metal called the shrinkage of

solidification. The metallurgist figure that the difference in volume
between the liquid and solid state of most silver and gold alloys is 5 to
6%. That means that as the metal solidifies, it is losing volume and, if
the feed sprue is still liquid, then more metal can now flow in to fill the
space that the shrinkage is producing. If the feed sprue is not liquid
when the metal in the pattern starts to freeze, then all the volume lost
because of shrinkage will be shrinkage porosity in the casting.

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The Basics
In Figure 4 we can see the same ring shape in three configurations. The
ring on the left has a thin shank, the top is solid and heavy and a nice
feed sprue is attached to the bottom. This ring would surely have a great
deal of porosity if it were cast as shown. If the requirement was to cast
the ring without secondary feed sprue starts to fill. This can be tested
with a rubber mold by turning the wax injector pressure down until the
pattern fill is incomplete. If the secondary feed sprue is feeding from the
pattern as well as the primary feed sprue and is discontinued between
the two points, then it is back feeding and not doing the intended job.

In Figure 5 is an example of an unbalanced feed sprue that back feeds.

The metal will fill the pattern before the secondary feed sprues start to
fill. The last point to fill will be mid-point of the secondary feed sprues.
Figure 6 shows a more balanced feed sprue system in which the metal
will flow to the top of the cross in about the same time it flows to the
arms of the cross and the last points to fill will be mid-arm on each side.
Notice that the attachment point to the main sprue is different than that
in Figure 5.
Modifying it, then the feed sprue on the center ring would feed the two
large sections and may give sound castings most of the time. If the ring
could be modified, then the top portion could be hollowed out from the
finger side and the shank made thicker as the ring on the right is done.
The feed sprue can be attached at the bottom and this ring should make
a sound casting every time if all other parameters are correct. Similar
illustrations have been in many articles and, as you can see, the two
rings to the right follow the rule of thumb. That is not the whole story
however.

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The V’s and Y’s of Spruing

When a feed sprue must feed more than one part of a pattern, then it is
common to split the feed sprue and make a ‘Y’. Attention needs to be
given to the ‘Y’ feed sprue so that the metal starvation and investment
erosion is not designed in. The stem of the ‘Y’ becomes the primary feed
sprue and must have enough cross sectional area to supply ample metal
to fill the two secondary feed sprues it splits into. Investment erosion
can result from liquid metal washing against a sharp edge, so make the
inside of the split rounded, not sharp.

If the temperature difference between the metal and the investment is

expected to be large, as would be the case casting palladium white gold,
concern for the turbulence and subsequent cooling that would be
expected where the metal splits off into the two secondary feed sprues
of a ‘Y’ can be relieved by using a ‘V’. The wax can be produced with a
‘Y’ sprue that is cut off to form a ‘V’. With all other parameters constant,
the ‘V’ feed sprue will deliver metal to the pattern with less temperature
drop than the ‘Y’, because the metal path is shorter and less tortuous.

A ‘Y’ is a balanced fluid system because, when the metal gets to the
junction where it splits into two streams, the metal will not favour one
side or the other unless some other force (such as centrifugal casting) is
involved.

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Unbalanced Secondary Feed

Sprues
Once a liquid commences to flow down a pipe it will follow the line of
least resistance. If a feed sprue has a secondary feed sprue branching to
one side, the metal will not run into it until backpressure forces a change
in direction. When the primary feed sprue is larger than the secondary
feed sprue in an unbalanced system, the pattern is often filled
completely before the secondary feed sprue starts to fill. This can be
tested with a rubber mold by turning the wax injector pressure down
until the pattern fill is incomplete. If the secondary feed sprue is feeding
from the pattern as well as the primary feed sprue and is discontinued
between the two points, then it is back feeding and not doing the
intended job. In Figure 5 is an example of an unbalanced feed sprue that
back feeds.

The metal will fill the pattern before the secondary feed sprues start to
fill. The last point to fill will be mid-point of the secondary feed sprues.
Figure 6 shows a more balanced feed sprue system in which the metal
will flow to the top of the cross in about the same time it flows to the
arms of the cross and the last points to fill will be mid-arm on each side.
Notice that the attachment point to the main sprue is different than that
in Figure 5.

Runners
A runner originates at the main sprue and has several feed sprues
attached to multiple patterns or multiple points on a single pattern.
Runners generally fill to the end and then backpressure starts the metal
to flow into the feed sprues. Figure 7 has an example of runners
properly used. Having a stock of cast tapered runners and feed sprues
on hand can greatly reduce the time required to prepare them for a
master model.

Mixing Thick and Thin

Patterns on a Tree
Thin patterns and thick patterns should not be cast on the same tree. If
the temperature is high enough to cast the thin patterns beautifully,
then the temperature should be too high to get good casting on the thick
patterns if they are treed together. Thin patterns fill better at the top of
a tree because the pressure is higher there than it is at the bottom of
the tree. If thin patterns will not fill at the bottom of the tree, then the
feed sprue may not be large enough or attached to the pattern in the
best way or the temperatures may be too low. Patterns that cast well at
the same flask and metal temperature can be mixed on the same tree
with more challenging patterns at the top and easy to fill patterns at the
bottom.

Heat Dissipation and System

Temperature
If we cast three patterns that were 15 x 15 mm x 1, 2 and 4 mm thick
respectively, Figure 8, on the same tree we could say that the casting
conditions were the same for all three patterns, because the investment
and the metal were the same temperature when the metal was cast. The
surface area on the top and bottom of all the patterns is constant; the
only increase in surface area on the larger patterns is on the sides thus
the volume increases much faster than the surface area, Table 1.

All the heat lost to the investment from the metal must be through the
surface interface. We know that investment is a poor conductor of heat
and measurements taken by Dieter Ott show that, after the metal is
cast, only 1 to 1.5 mm thickness of investment material next to the
metal will experience any temperature change and naturally, as the
metal cools, the adjacent investment heats.

The temperature of the metal may have been the same when it was
cast, but each pattern holds a different amount of metal and, therefore,
a corresponding amount of heat energy. The 4 mm thick pattern will
discharge 4 times the heat to the investment relative to the 1 mm
pattern. This means the temperature rise of the investment will be much
greater around the 4 mm pattern than around the 1 mm pattern and the
2 mm pattern should be in-between.

If the metal temperature and the flask temperature are correct for the 1
mm pattern (this is the hardest to fill and requires higher temperature),
then the temperature will be too high for the larger patterns and gas
porosity is likely.

Casters have a practice of classifying their patterns for flask

temperature, Heavy, Medium and Light. Most casters would classify two
of the patterns on the tree in Figure 9 as heavy and one each as medium
and light. The term System Temperature is used to describe the effect
that surface area and volume (surface area to volume ratio) have on the
cooling of the metal and the subsequent increase in the temperature of
the investment at the metal interface for a specific pattern, flask and
metal temperature and alloy. The pattern with the grooved surface has
less volume of metal as the other 4 mm thick pattern and the surface
area is somewhat more. Because of that it might cast better at the
‘medium flask’ temperature. We can conclude from this that:

1. System temperature is pattern specific. When considering which

patterns can be on the same tree, the surface to volume ratio should
be noted, not just the cross sectional thickness.

2. When the pattern has high surface area and low volume (thin
patterns), the flask temperature influence is greater then that of the
metal temperature. As volume increases in ratio to surface area
(thick patterns), the flask temperature influence on the system
temperature decreases.

3. Flask temperature is controlled by the hardest to fill pattern on the

tree.

4. When thin and thick patterns are on the same tree, the flask
temperature has to be high enough to fill the thin patterns, and
would be too high to cast the thick patterns at their best system
temperature.

5. . System temperature is alloy specific. The casting temperature for

a metal has to be above the liquid temperature and since various
alloys melt at different temperatures, the casting temperatures will
vary as well. For a particular alloy, the casting temperature will
generally be lower for thick section patterns and higher for thin
section patterns, but in every case the casting temperature of the
metal is strongly influenced by size, shape and attachment point of
the feed sprue. Betterdesigned feed sprues will allow casting at a
lower system temperature.
Test for System Temperature
A simple experiment can be used to quickly find the best system
temperature for a range of patterns cast with a specific alloy. Build five
trees alike with five or six different patterns on each tree, as seen in
Figure 10. The selection of patterns should represent the variety of
patterns you cast; for example thin, medium, thick, large and small.
Inspect all the wax patterns before using them and attach them the
same side up. The patterns are attached in a vertical row at the top,
center and bottom of the main sprue.

Do not expect all the different patterns to cast well on any one tree;
rather, the purpose is to find out how each pattern casts at a
temperature combination. If there are five patterns on the tree, one cast
will give a good idea how each of these different patterns will cast at a
given temperature set and, therefore, five experiments are performed in
one cast. This is called a designed experiment, whereby the normal
methodical testing process is shortcut.
A set of test trees, as described above, are cast using a grid of flask and
metal temperatures. Your grid should note the alloy and the patterns
being cast. Put the presumed temperature sweet spot in the center of
the grid as shown, Table 2; in this case, the flask temperature is 550°C
and metal 1000°C. Cast one flask at each temperature combination on
the grid above, below and at each side of the sweet spot. Make sure all
the flasks are well soaked at the casting temperature before casting.
Holding the flask for three or four hours at casting temperature is
considered prudent to get good experimental results.

After casting, inspect the casting in the as-cast condition, record the
results and send any promising casting through finishing and normal
quality inspection. A simple inspection criterion can be used to grade the
casting for evaluating test results.

Inspection Criteria
All casting inspected and rated as a 1, 2 or 3 where

1 = any casting that can be finished and would pass internal quality
control
2 = any casting that can be repaired, finished and would pass internal
quality control
3 = any casting that is rejected, not economic to repair

In most cases, the casting graded #3 will be sorted out in the as cast
condition. Some #2 castings may be identified in the as cast condition,
or subsurface defects may show up later. Wax patterns must be free of
any powder. By careful inspection of wax patterns before casting,
defects attributed to the mold and wax pattern can be eliminated. Care
should be given to identify any defect that can be attributed to
investment or burnout. Fins from cracked investment, or voids caused
by investment inclusions, for example, are not temperature related
casting defects and should be excluded from this test grading. A short
list of defects that should be attributed to wrong System Temperature
are incomplete filling, gas porosity, shrinkage porosity, rough surface
(where the wax was smooth), and cracks.

After the castings are graded, the score (1, 2 or 3) for each pattern
number is recorded on a test results chart, Table 3. The test data is easy
to understand in this form and trends can quickly be seen. The example
in Table 3 clearly shows the best flask and metal temperature for casting
pattern # 213 in alloy 18KY. Pattern 213 was picked to represent a
larger selection of patterns that were judged to have similar surface-to-
volume ratios and, therefore, would be expected to cast well at similar
flask and metal temperature. So all patterns that are represented by
pattern 213 in the test should be cast at metal 980° and flask 550°.

The goal is to get all grade one castings and it is possible that that is not
achieved for a pattern in the temperature grid that was picked for the
test. In Table 4, pattern 347 is used to show how the chart can identify
trends. Metal 1000° and flask 600° is the best, but not good enough.
Since Metal 1020° and Flask 550° is much better than Metal 980° and
Flask 550°, the trend to improve would be to increase metal
temperature to 1020°. This could be done as a single cast test, or a new
grid could be formed with a new presumed sweet spot.

Test for Best Feed Sprue

Design
After the system temperature is found and applied to the range of
pattern styles produced, it may become evident that not all the patterns
are casting with the desired quality at the system temperature chosen
for it. This leaves two options: find a new temperature set for that
pattern, or experiment with the feed sprue. If the casting surface is
rough and such things as powder in the wax, or a rough wax coming
from the mold are eliminated, then the temperature may be too high for
that pattern and a lower temperature can be explored. If the surface is
very fine but detail such as prongs are not filling, the feed sprue may be
to blame.

Another designed experiment can be used to find the feed sprue design
that works best for any pattern. This time, only one pattern design will
be used on the tree, but it will be attached with five different feed sprue
configurations. Using wax wire (or wax feed sprues made in a rubber
mold, Figure 11), attach feed sprues to the patterns in different
locations. Build a tree in the same manner as the system temperature
and test with three patterns on the tree with each of the five or six feed
sprue configurations, Figures 12a and 12b. One flask may be all that is
required to solve the defect, but if the results are not satisfactory, then
make and cast additional flasks on a new temperature grid.

Attachment Point
The geometry of the pattern itself can be used to enhance the
effectiveness of the feed sprue. In Figure 13, the same pattern was cast
on the same level of the same tree with a palladium white gold alloy.
The pattern on the left was cast with a flat feed sprue and the two
patterns on the right were cast with the same tapered round sprue.
Attaching the feed sprue to the point of the heart allows the metal to
flow more smoothly, providing a complete fill where the same size and
shape feed sprue didn’t do as well when attached to the side of the
heart.

Pattern Position
Sometimes pattern position can make a difference too. A silver pin in the
form of a bow with stone setting prongs in the center is an example of
such a feed sprue study. When the system temperature that produced
the smoothest as-cast surface was used, several feed sprue
configurations were tried with strongly varying results. The single feed
sprue in Figure 14 produced shrinkage porosity on the opposite loop
from the attachment point. Adding a second feed sprue, Figure 15, only
moved the porosity. When the position was changed from vertical to
horizontal with two feed sprues, Figure 16, the porosity was eliminated
but prongs did not fill completely. The prongs could be filled in this
position by increasing the metal temperature but the surface was not as
good as desired.

To our surprise, adding a third feed sprue to the center, Figure 17, still
didn’t fill the prongs completely. Finally, using two feed sprues and
facing the pattern to the flask wall gave excellent results, Figure 18a.
Figure 18b shows the successful feed sprue arrangement on the left side
of a tree with a control pattern of a previous arrangement on the right.
If the control patterns cast as expected and the new feed sprue is
better, then you can be more certain that there is real improvement in
the feed sprue design and the result was not an anomaly. Why the
position made a difference in this case is not known and this subject
needs more study.
Where is the Gate?
At the beginning of this article, a promise was made to discuss gates in
more detail. Remember the discussion about the shrinkage of
solidification and metal flowing to fill the void space it causes. If you
have ever cast an ingot, you have undoubtedly been witness to this
shrinkage. When the ingot is first poured, the liquid metal is slightly
domed on the top, Figure 19a. When the metal has solidified, the top will
have a big sink that is greatest in the center. The difference in volume is
nature’s graph of the volume lost to the shrinkage of solidification. If a
casting were made with two spheres connected by a rod, as pictured in
Figure 19b, and fed at one end by a large feed sprue, the metal would
fill the entire cavity. The little rod would be the first place to start
freezing, because it has relatively little volume compared to the surface
area in contact with the investment.
The spheres, on the other hand have a great volume relative to their
surface area. After all the metal has solidified, the sphere connected to
the feed sprue would have little shrinkage porosity while the other
sphere would have shrinkage porosity equal to the total shrinkage of
solidification for that volume and alloy. The reason for the difference is
the gate. When the little rod froze, it became the gate stopping the flow
of metal to the second sphere, while the large feed sprue was able to
continue feeding metal to the first sphere while it was shrinking. This is
a classic thick-thin-thick pattern that is always a recipe for shrinkage
porosity.

Putting a 3 mm round feed sprue on a 1 mm x 2 mm flat ring shank

does not reduce shrinkage porosity at the thick top of the ring, Figure
20. In this case, the thin ring shank itself becomes the gate when it
freezes on either side of the feed sprue.
The ring on the right in Figure 21 has a secondary feed sprue and cast
with porosity at the top. The ring on the left side was reworked making
the top thinner and the shank thicker. The reworked ring has the same
weight as the original and looks the same on the finger, but it is easier
to wax, and will cast without porosity. This is an example of designing
high cost of production in with the original pattern and designing high
production cost out in the reworked pattern.
Properly designed feed sprues are one of the most important aspects of
a master model and should be well studied before something is
attached. Here is a simple little template that I call a Sprue Gauge. I
made this to help the model maker design the feed sprue attachment*,
Figure 22. The black line represents the cylinder or flask wall. The red
area is the safety zone of investment into which the wax patterns should
not extend. The black dot in the center is the main sprue. The red line
on the pattern shows where a line is engraved on the master model so
the tree maker knows where to cut the wax to get uniform feed sprue
length.

A pattern can be placed on this little template for study about how to
best attach the feed sprue before any metal work is done, Figure 23.
These two patterns will best fit in a 125 mm or 5 inch diameter flask.
Three of the dog pattern, Figure 24, can be cast on a level in a 100 mm
diameter flask. However, there are limited options for the gate
attachment points. The attachment angle of the feed sprue becomes
evident but might not have been without the sprue gauge. Six of the
same dog pattern will fit on a level in a 125 mm diameter flask, Figure
25. The gate attachment points are more limited unless fewer patterns
are on a level. A 150 mm diameter flask can hold 8 parts around with a
lot of flexibility for feed sprue attachment points and design, Figure 26.
Depending on the structure of the pattern, any one of these gate designs
could work. Casting all of them in the same test flask is the easy way to
see which of them is the best. Make a temporary mold on the master
model. Wax patterns from the temporary mold can have feed sprues
attached by hand in different configurations and test cast before
committing the master model to the feed sprue that will be used in
production. Knowing the product can be cast economically before
production starts will save a lot of wasted time and money.