Investment casting occurs in the following steps:

1. Produce a master pattern

A mold-maker creates an original pattern from wax, clay, wood, plastic, or metal. Modern investment casting commonly uses 3D-printed wax or SLA resin patterns.

2. Create a mold

A mold, or master die, is made to fit the master pattern. The die will commonly resemble an injection mold that is used to replicate the original pattern.

3. Produce wax patterns

Wax patterns can be produced by (A) pouring wax into the mold and swishing around until an even coating covers the inner mold surface; or (B) filling the entire mold with molten wax and letting it cool as a solid object. Cores can be created using either soluble wax or ceramic.

4. Assemble wax patterns

Multiple wax patterns can be created and assembled into one large pattern to be cast in one batch pour. In this situation, patterns are attached to a wax sprue to create a pattern cluster, or tree. As many as several hundred patterns can be assembled into a tree.

5. Apply investment materials

The ceramic shell, known as the investment, is produced by repeating a series of steps — coating, stuccoing, and hardening — until a desired thickness is achieved.

6. Dewax

Once ceramic shells have fully cured, they are turned upside-down and placed in a furnace or autoclave to melt out or vaporize the wax. Any wax that runs out of the shell is usually recovered and reused.

7. Burnout preheating

The shell is then subjected to a burnout, which heats the mold to between 870° C and 1095° C to remove moisture and residual wax, and to sinter the shell. This heating can also be used to preheat the shell before casting, which helps the metal to fill all mold details and increase dimensional accuracy.

8. Pouring

The investment shell is then placed open-side up into a tub filled with sand. The metal may be gravity poured or forced by applying pressure, vacuum, or centrifugal force.

9. Divesting

The shell is hammered, media blasted, vibrated, waterjeted, or chemically dissolved to release the casting. The sprue is cut off and recycled. The casting is then cleaned up to remove signs of the casting process, usually by grinding.

10. Finishing

After grinding, the completed casting is then subject to finishing via hand tooling, welding, and occasionally straightening on a hydraulic press.

Vacuum Investment Casting

A specialized version of investment casting uses gas pressure and a vacuum to improve the quality of the casting and minimize porosity. The most common materials for vacuum investment casting are the high Nickel-based alloy and super-alloys.