Cast or forged, whats the difference.
- Thread starter mack
- Start date
To cast metal, you melt it and pour or pump it into a mould.
To forge metal, you (usually) heat it up, but don't melt it, and pound it into a mould. In general, forged parts are significantly stronger than cast.
To forge metal, you (usually) heat it up, but don't melt it, and pound it into a mould. In general, forged parts are significantly stronger than cast.
About golf clubs, but pretty good anyway:
So then you get to the next question which is when and why do you choose forging over casting.
If you are making parts that are under high stress or sudden peaks of stress in their use, then forging gets the nod. That's because in forging you retain the aligment of the grain structure of the metal in a parallel form (isotropic) that ensures equal strength in all directions of the part. Casting can't do that because you turn the metal into a molten state which disorients the grain structure of the metal when it cools and goes back to its solidus state. Heat treatment after casting is intended to re-orient the grain structure to get back some of the strength but it will never be in the same orientation as it can be from cold forging or even hot forging.
So, great for high stress parts like front forks on bikes or landing gears, but why make clubheads that way, especially irons, which are by nature of their shape and size, pretty much bullet proof for hitting a golf ball. Faces on woods, sure, forging is better when you want to push the COR limit, but nowadays with the COR limit, you don;t really have to forge a face to still get it up to the COR limit, at least as long as the face area is large enough to provide the spring face capability.
http://www.wishongolf.com/twforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=693
So then you get to the next question which is when and why do you choose forging over casting.
If you are making parts that are under high stress or sudden peaks of stress in their use, then forging gets the nod. That's because in forging you retain the aligment of the grain structure of the metal in a parallel form (isotropic) that ensures equal strength in all directions of the part. Casting can't do that because you turn the metal into a molten state which disorients the grain structure of the metal when it cools and goes back to its solidus state. Heat treatment after casting is intended to re-orient the grain structure to get back some of the strength but it will never be in the same orientation as it can be from cold forging or even hot forging.
So, great for high stress parts like front forks on bikes or landing gears, but why make clubheads that way, especially irons, which are by nature of their shape and size, pretty much bullet proof for hitting a golf ball. Faces on woods, sure, forging is better when you want to push the COR limit, but nowadays with the COR limit, you don;t really have to forge a face to still get it up to the COR limit, at least as long as the face area is large enough to provide the spring face capability.
http://www.wishongolf.com/twforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=693
I have no idea whether Marzocchi crowns are cast or forged, and it may vary by model and year.mack said:
I think that forging's significantly more expensive. It generally takes several moulds and forming operations, then finish work, to create a forged part.