Cast Parts Made to Order — Pump Casings, Valve Bodies, Bearing and Gearbox Housings, Flywheels, Pulleys, Machine Beds and More, Cast and Machined

EKINSUN LTD is a custom parts manufacturer that makes cast parts to drawing or from a sample — pump casings and impellers, valve bodies and bonnets, bearing housings and pillow blocks, gearbox housings, motor end shields, flywheels, pulleys, handwheels, machine beds and bases, brackets and manifolds — in grey iron, ductile iron, cast steel, stainless steel, aluminium, bronze and aluminium bronze, machined after casting, from 1 piece. The tables list the parts by name: what each is also called, where it sits, what it is usually cast in and which faces are machined afterwards. How it is made — pattern and sand casting, a 3D-printed sand mould, investment casting, or machining from solid — is ours to choose by quantity, size and material.

Cast parts by name — what is cast, in which material, and what is machined afterwards

Seven families, more than fifty part names. Each row names the part the way buyers and manuals name it, and the faces that carry the accuracy: a casting is two jobs, the rough shape and the machining of the faces that fit, seal, locate or carry a bearing.

Pumps

A pump casing is usually cast in grey iron EN-GJL-250, ductile iron, CF8M or bronze, and after casting only the flange faces, the wear-ring and the seal-chamber bores are machined.

Valves

A valve body is cast in ductile iron, WCB, CF8M, bronze or forging brass; the ports, seats, flange faces and bonnet thread are machined after casting.

Motors, gearboxes and drives

A gearbox housing is cast in grey iron EN-GJL-250, ductile iron or aluminium, and its bearing bores are machined in line after casting.

Machine tools and industrial equipment

A lathe, grinder or milling-machine bed is cast in grey iron EN-GJL-300, and its guideways are ground or scraped after casting.

Vehicles, construction and farm machinery

A differential carrier for a truck, tractor or classic car is cast in ductile iron or cast steel, with the bearing bores and flange faces machined.

Marine, mining and energy

A seawater pump casing on board is cast in bronze CC491K or aluminium bronze, and a small-craft propeller in aluminium bronze CC333G or bronze, machined at the bore taper and keyway.

Pipework, food and chemical plant, streets and furniture

Stainless pump bodies, valve bodies and sanitary fittings for food, dairy, chemical and pharma plant are cast in CF8M (1.4408) or CF3M (1.4409), with the ports and seats machined and the internals polished.

The same cast parts in German, French and Spanish

A pump casing is a Pumpengehäuse or Spiralgehäuse in German, a corps de pompe or volute in French and a carcasa de bomba or voluta in Spanish; a valve body is a Ventilgehäuse, a corps de vanne and a cuerpo de válvula.

How the part is made — pattern, printed sand mould, investment casting or machined from solid

One to tens of pieces are machined from solid or cast in a 3D-printed sand mould, with no tooling; tens to thousands go to a pattern and sand casting at Ra 6.3–25 µm, and hundreds and up to investment casting at Ra 1.6–6.3 µm.

Quantities are where each route usually pays; size, material and delivery move the boundaries. The quote names the route and the reason.

The rule behind the table: copy the geometry the machine needs, not the production method the original maker happened to use. A grey-iron bracket that cracked can come back in ductile iron or steel; a small cast cover needed twice is machined from a plate; a casting that was cast and welded in two parts can come back as one.

Is my part cast? How to tell a casting from a forging or a machined part

How can you tell if a metal part is cast?

A metal part is cast when it shows a parting line around it, draft on the walls, rounded edges, raised lettering and a grainy or finely pitted surface (Ra 6.3–25 µm on a sand casting), while only its flange faces, bores and threads are bright and machined. Pump casings, valve bodies, gearbox and bearing housings, motor end shields, flywheels, pulleys and machine beds are cast this way.

How can you tell if a part is cast or forged?

A cast part has a parting line with draft on both sides, a grainy surface and raised cast lettering; a forged part has a smoother, scaled surface, a trimmed flash line round its widest point and stamped lettering, and a cut and etched section shows grain flow that follows the shape. Forgings are solid and have no internal passages; castings often do.

How can you tell cast iron from cast steel, stainless or aluminium?

A magnet sticks firmly to cast iron and cast steel, weakly or not at all to cast austenitic stainless, and not at all to aluminium, brass or bronze. Grey cast iron breaks with a dark grey granular fracture and makes a dull sound when tapped; cast steel rings and bends before it breaks; aluminium is about one third of the weight of iron for the same size.

Which parts are usually cast?

Parts with curved walls, internal passages, ribs or thick and thin sections in one piece are usually cast, because machining that shape from solid would take hours and turn most of the bar into chips. The tables above list more than fifty of them by name, with the material they are usually cast in and the faces machined afterwards.

Can a cast part be made again when the maker no longer sells it?

Yes. A cast part is copied from the part or its pieces: measured or 3D-scanned, the model rebuilt with draft and machining allowance, cast from a pattern or a 3D-printed sand mould, and machined on the faces that fit; one or two small parts are machined from solid instead. EKINSUN makes these from 1 piece, from the part, a drawing or a sketch.

The faces that are bright and flat, the bores and the threads are machined whichever way the part was made; the question that matters for a copy is what the rest of the shape does. Raised part numbers on a housing often name the original maker and the pattern, which helps find the drawing or the grade.

Cast materials — grey iron, ductile iron, cast steel, stainless, aluminium and bronze

Grey iron EN-GJL-250 is GG-25 in old DIN, A48 Class 35 in ASTM, HT250 in China and FC250 in Japan; ductile iron EN-GJS-400-15 is GGG-40, A536 60-40-18, QT400-15 and FCD400.

Nearest equivalents, not identical chemistries; the drawing or order names one standard. Grey and ductile iron grade by grade, with the ASTM grade each one meets: cast iron vs ductile iron.

Tolerances, machining allowance and why a casting needs the part or a drawing

A raw casting is not held to machining tolerances. ISO 8062-3 grades casting tolerances from DCTG 1 to DCTG 16 by process and material: sand castings sit in the coarse grades, investment and die castings in the finer ones, and a machining allowance is added to every face that will be machined. Every face that fits, seals, locates or carries a bearing is machined afterwards to the drawing or to ISO 2768.

Draft angles, fillet radii, machining allowance and shrinkage are built into the model before a pattern or printed mould is made. That is why a housing, cover or casing cannot be made from a few dimensions: the part itself, the pieces of a broken one, or a drawing is needed. Bores, bolt circles and seats are taken from the faces that did not wear, or from the mating parts.

What to send for a cast part

• The part, or the pieces of a broken one; or a drawing; or photos of every face with a ruler in the picture, so we can say which route fits before you ship.
• What it bolts to and what runs in it: the shaft, the bearing, the pipe flange, the gear.
• The material if known — cast marks, the maker’s part number, or the machine it comes from.
• Quantity now and later: one replacement, a few spares, or a series.
• Anything that failed: a crack, a worn bore, a corroded seat — so the copy can be stronger than the original.

Where the catalogue stops

A cast part the equipment maker still sells is best bought from the maker; an obsolete, cracked or worn one with no drawing is copied from the part, cast from a pattern or a printed mould, then machined.

Related pages

• Valve bodies — pressure reducing, gate, globe, check, butterfly and ball valve bodies
• Pump replacement parts — impellers, shafts, wear rings and casings
• Custom housings — bearing housings and machined enclosures
• Gearbox parts — gears, shafts and housings for gearboxes
• Manifold blocks — hydraulic and pneumatic blocks machined from solid
• Copying a cast part without drawings — how the shape is captured and rebuilt
• Obsolete parts — parts copied when the maker is gone
• Billet aluminium blocks — why some parts are machined from solid instead of cast

A bearing housing in 1 to 10 pieces is machined from block rather than cast; UCP 204 to 212 sizes and the dimensions a replacement keeps are on bearing housing replacement.

Frequently asked questions