GET FORGED VS CAST IRONS INFORMATION

Forged

Forging refers to a process in which a material is usually heated, while maintaining a solid state, and then forced into the shape desired. Now to explain better, we must put on our material engineering hats.

Metals have a crystalline structure. You can think of it like wood. Wood has grains and those grains are oriented in a certain pattern. Therefore, the strength of wood depends on how those grains are oriented. For example, it is much easier to splinter a log for firewood when the grains are oriented vertically. Metal is the same way. If you examine metal under a microscope it will have the same grains that you associate with wood.

When metal ingots are formed, special attention is made to creating a uniform and consistent crystalline structure. The grain sizes are similar and flow together. As previously stated, this maximizes the strength, consistency, and durability of the metal.

Now when you forge something out of that metal ingot, you heat the ingot to make it malleable but not enough to break apart the crystalline grain structure. Think of a blacksmith. Blacksmiths heat metal till it’s red hot and then form it on an anvil. This is forging. You do not see them melting the metal into a liquid. By keeping the metal, solid throughout the entire process, it ends up being a much stronger object. Therefore, swords, knives, etc. have historically been forged.

Cast Irons

Casting an object requires building a mold and pouring liquid metal into it. This process is great, as it allows for easy manufacturing and the creation of complex parts with hollow chambers such as with an engine block of a vehicle. The manufacturer can use a meltable material such as wax inside a sand mold to form these complex shapes.

Unfortunately, once the metal becomes a liquid the crystalline grain structure breaks down. As a newly formed cast object cools down and becomes solid again, the grain structure reforms but this time much more randomly and inconsistently. There also is the potential for trapped air to create weak points. The metal becomes more like particle board or cardboard in terms of structure than a normal piece of wood.

Now does this make cast parts weak? Absolutely not. Over the past couple thousand years, humans have gotten pretty good at making cast metal parts. Ventilation holes, vacuum pressure, and other advances increase the quality of cast metal. As stated, cast metal is what vehicle engine blocks are made from those are expected to withstand extreme stress and strain.

Manufacturing Process Forged vs Cast Irons

The first thing to know is that “cast” and “forged” are nothing more than terms describing the manufacturing process of iron or a set of irons.

The casting process: When a golf iron is cast, the metal used to make the iron is heated to its melting point, becoming a liquid. It is then poured into the molds of the iron heads. When it cools and hardens, voila, you have golf irons.
The forging process: When a golf iron is forged, the solid metal of the club head is literally pounded or compressed until it takes the desired shape. After that, a number of other drilling and machining steps take place to finish the manufacturing process.

Forging is stronger than casting.

One of the main reasons we choose to provide forging services is that it provides a stronger end product for our partners. According to a study performed by the Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering Department at the University of Toledo:

• Forged parts had a 26% higher tensile strength than the same cast parts.
• Forged parts had a 37% higher fatigue strength resulting in a much longer lifespan than cast parts.
• Cast iron only had 66% of the yield strength of forged steel, a measurement that indicates the load amount metal can hold before deforming.
• The forged parts had a 58% reduction in the area when pulled to failure, compared to a 6% reduction for cast parts. That means forge parts allow for much greater deformation before failure than cast parts.