If you’re looking for a quick turnaround on cast parts, you might find that it’s challenging to get the parts you need when you need them.
The good news is that you can get your parts faster simply by switching from cast parts to machined billets (aka “hogouts”). At Moseys, we not only deliver machined parts up to 90 days faster than you’ll receive most cast parts but also ensure exceptional quality unmatched by most casting processes.
Keep reading to learn how our customer-centric California machine shop can improve your parts, your lead time, and your overall experience by helping you transition from casting to machining.
7 Reasons to Transition from Castings to Machined Billet Parts
Rather than forming your parts through casting or forging, Moseys will machine billets to create what’s known as a “hogout.” Our shop has the necessary 5-axis machines and a team of design advisors who can provide the latest Design for Manufacturing (DFM) guidance for converting your part from casting to hogout.
While we love our jobs, we aren’t promoting hogouts just for fun. There are several significant advantages to transitioning from casting to CNC machining services:
1. Shorter lead times
Casting lead times are often long, with many customers waiting for half a year to receive their castings! When you opt for hogouts instead, you’ll receive your completed parts in weeks—not months.
2. Better strength
Castings are inherently porous, which decreases their overall strength. Parts machined from billet material are much stronger and denser than castings.
3. Fewer secondary processes
A casting’s porousness also creates challenges when finishing processes are required. Prior to finishing, a cast part must be impregnated with resin—often more than once—in a tedious process intended to fill and seal the poured material’s tiny pores.
Pre-finishing processes are not necessary when using CNC machining services since hogouts are already dense, high-integrity parts.
4. Improved finishing results
Finishing processes such as powder coating and anodizing are simpler to perform effectively on hogouts versus castings.
Anodizing, for example, involves first etching the part’s surface, then following that step with an alkali cleaning process. If a casting has not undergone the impregnation process to mitigate porosity, liquid can get trapped inside it and negatively impact the results of the anodized coating.
Color anodizing outcomes are also poor on castings unless they’ve been impregnated with resin. As the trapped liquid leaks out of the cast part, the colored dye will also leach out, resulting in an uneven, speckled appearance compared to the beautifully even coloring that can be achieved when color anodizing billet parts.
5. Expanded material options
There are fewer materials available for cast parts than for hogouts. Most castings are aluminum, though stainless steel, iron, and bronze are also options.
When you choose billet material and CNC machining services, your material options are limited only by the part’s application and your specifications.
6. Flexible quantities
Logically, most casting houses have strict minimums for poured parts. Due to the costs and times required to make castings, shops cannot efficiently make them in low quantities.
Hogouts are typically much faster to make, allowing shops like ours to offer lower quantities without charging huge fees. If your part is relatively simple with no hidden features, Moseys can likely produce it in a volume as low (or high) as you need!
7. Reduced overall cost
When you evaluate the complete picture and consider every aspect of casting or precision CNC machining your part—from lead time to tooling to finishing to seeking a reputable casting house—you’ll likely find that the cost of hogouts is more affordable than castings.
Design for Manufacturing for Hogouts vs. Cast Parts
Depending on your part’s complexity, casting may be required—at least for a portion of the part. In the case of hidden features, in particular, CNC machining services may not be an option. But there are solutions!
Getting started
To begin, the Moseys team can help you determine whether your part is a good candidate for machining instead of casting. If there’s no advantage to transitioning your part away from casting, we will tell you.
Design modifications
In some cases, you may find that it makes sense to modify your part’s design to make it a multi-piece part rather than a single hogout. The section with the hidden feature can be cast and then assembled to the machined portion.
Other customers see such significant benefits to machining over casting that they opt to dramatically alter their design to allow for full machinability.
Additive manufacturing can also help solve many DFM challenges, but 3D printing a part’s complex features is rarely cost-effective. (Hopefully, that will change in the very near future!)
Because casting drawings require minimal information, be sure to update your blueprint to include the part’s total dimensions when requesting CNC machining services.
Talk to Moseys about Transitioning to 100% Machined Parts
Which parts are best suited for hogouts? Anything you’re currently casting!
We’re always machining billet materials to make hogouts for our automotive and aerospace customers as well as many others.
Reach out to our team to learn more about how hogouts can help your business achieve new levels of productivity!
Submit your quote request online!
