Remasol® Adbond® QuikBuild™ – A Case Study
Introduction
QuickBuild is a unique binder blend that uses an Organic Viscosity Modifier (OVM) to increase the thickness of each layer of shell. This means that the required overall shell thickness and load-bearing capacity is achieved using fewer layers. The benefits include:
- Thicker shell build
- Premixed binder
- High green strength
- Good permeability
- Uniform stucco coating
- Excellent slurry life
Easy to use
The binder is supplied pre-blended and ready to use with no dilution and no mixing required. Quickbuild requires minimal maintenance and has a long slurry life.
The slurry provides excellent results, even in less than ideal environmental and process conditions. Despite each layer being thicker than with a traditional system, the drying time is comparable.
QuikBuild in action
QuikBuild was introduced to a commercial foundry, to try and reduce the number of layers they need to use for each wax tree.
Reducing Layers
If the number of layers per pattern can be reduced without impacting quality or drying cycle time, then the foundry would be able to increase capacity without any capital expenditure.
The setup
- The slurry was made up and allowed to stabilise prior to use
- The drying time for each coat was 2 hours
- The shell room was set to a temperature of 22°C and had good air movement
- The dipping was done by hand by the foundry staff
In use
The primary coats were applied in advanced, using their usual primary slurry, and left to dry overnight as normal.
Two sets of trees were then dipped side by side, one in the traditional slurry and one in the QuikBuild slurry. The final shells would be compared at the end of the trial.
The standard process for the shell construction for this part was 6 backup coats, so 6 were applied to both sets of trees allow for a direct comparison.
The results
The resulting QuikBuild shells were shown to have an increased thickness of 30% when comparing to the standard shells. This outcome would allow the foundry to reduce the number of layers by 2 for this pattern, reducing the shell construction time by 4 hours.
QB Chart 2
Similarly, when built to the same number of coats, the strength of the shells was compared and the QuikBuild shell was shown to have an increase in green strength of 36%.
QB Chart 3
The foundry was happy with the quality of the final cast parts and have integrated QuikBuild into their processes.
A standard shell (left) next to a QuikBuild shell (right)
