Top 10 Investment Casting Foundry in the World 2026

List of Top Investment Casting Foundries

Investment casting (also known as lost-wax casting or precision casting) remains one of the most reliable manufacturing processes for producing complex, near-net-shape metal components with tight tolerances and excellent surface finish. Whether you are sourcing for aerospace, defense, oil & gas, automotive, medical, or industrial equipment, choosing the right investment casting foundry is one of the most important supplier decisions a procurement or engineering team will make.

This guide profiles 10 well-established investment casting manufacturers across the United States and China, covering each company's founding year, headquarters location, main products/services, and an overview to help global buyers evaluate potential casting partners. Use the directory below to jump to any company.

What Does an Investment Casting Foundry Do?

Investment casting foundries use the "lost-wax" process to produce high-precision metal parts: a wax pattern is shaped, coated with a ceramic shell, then heated to melt out the wax before molten metal is poured into the resulting cavity. This process enables thin walls, complex internal geometries, and near-net-shape parts — which is why it's widely used in industries like aerospace, defense, medical implants, automotive, and oil & gas, where precision matters most.

Now that you understand how it works, the next step is finding the right supplier. There are quite a few notable investment casting foundries around the world worth knowing — let's take a look at what makes each of these 10 stand out.

Top 10 Investment Casting Foundries

Stainless Foundry & Engineering (Milwaukee, WI, USA)
Barron Industries (Oxford, MI, USA)
IPC Foundry Group (Marble Falls, TX & Lindon, UT, USA)
MetalTek Wisconsin Investcast (Watertown, WI, USA)
Franklin Precision Castings (Franklin, PA, USA)
American Casting Company (Hollister, CA, USA)
Qianhao / China Precise Casting (Ningbo, China)
Besser Casting (Ningbo, China)
Signicast (Hartford, WI, USA)
Precision Castparts Corp. (Portland, OR, USA)

1. Stainless Foundry & Engineering (stainlessfoundry.com)

Established: Long-standing US foundry (decades of continuous operation)
Headquarters: 5110 North 35th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Main Products: Investment ("lost-wax") castings and sand castings in over 250 ferrous and non-ferrous alloys, plus in-house CNC machining, NDT (RT, PT, MT, VT, UT), and full quality/metallurgy support.

Company Overview —

Stainless Foundry & Engineering (SF&E) is a one-stop-shop foundry that combines both sand casting and investment casting divisions under a single roof in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — a major advantage for buyers who need more than one casting process without having to manage two separate suppliers. Its investment casting operation runs 14 wax presses (27–70 tons), an automated dipping room capable of 400–600 molds per day, and seven induction-melt furnaces ranging from 190 lbs. to 1,000 lbs., giving the foundry flexibility across batch sizes and alloy families. SF&E casts parts from a few ounces up to roughly 150 lbs., with wall sections as thin as 1/8 inch, and supports demanding sectors such as oil & gas, nuclear, government/military, and food contact applications. Its certifications include ISO 9001, PED, and conformance statements for nuclear, defense, and food-contact programs, and the company maintains an active in-house Investment Engineering Department to assist customers converting fabricated or welded assemblies into single-piece castings — a conversion that can cut cost and lead time by as much as 50%.

Positioning: a full-service "dual casting process" foundry — ideal for buyers who want sand and investment casting plus machining from one US-based, ISO-certified supplier.

2. Barron Industries (barron-industries.com)

Established: 1923 (as Motor and Machinery Castings); entered investment casting in 1983 — celebrating its 100th anniversary as of 2023
Headquarters: 215 Plexus Drive, Oxford, Michigan, USA (with subsidiaries in France and Germany)
Main Products: Precision investment castings and machined assemblies in 200+ ferrous and non-ferrous alloys — aluminum, stainless steel, carbon/low-alloy steel, nickel, cobalt, tool steel, and (newly added) titanium.

Company Overview —

Founded in 1923 by Joseph Barron — who personally delivered castings to Henry Ford — Barron Industries has grown from a Detroit sand-casting foundry into a global, vertically integrated investment casting manufacturer with a century of metalcasting experience. The company is AS9100 and NADCAP accredited (NDT, including digital radiography and liquid penetrant inspection), and also holds ISO 9001, ITAR, and CMMC 2.0 compliance, with approved-supplier status from major aerospace and defense OEMs such as Boeing and GE Aerospace. Barron's vertically integrated process covers design-for-manufacturing, additive-manufacturing rapid prototyping, in-house CNC machining, NADCAP-certified welding and NDT, assembly, painting, and plating — reducing the number of suppliers a buyer needs to coordinate. The foundry operates three steel and two aluminum melting units, six-axis robotic shell-dipping lines, and advanced solidification-modeling software to de-risk new part development before tooling is cut. Its core markets include aerospace, defense, space & satellites, energy, automotive, and heavy truck/construction equipment, and it recently expanded into titanium casting through the acquisition of Tritech.

Positioning: a century-old, vertically integrated aerospace/defense-grade investment casting house — strong fit for mission-critical, ITAR/CMMC-regulated programs.

3. IPC Foundry Group (ipcfoundry.com)

Established: Texas facility roots trace to 1975 (founded as Highland Lakes Quality Casting); rebranded as IPC Foundry Group in 2022–2023. Utah facility has 45+ years of casting history.
Headquarters: Multiple US foundries — Marble Falls, Texas (Texas Hill Country/Austin area) and Lindon, Utah
Main Products: Investment castings in low-carbon steel, tool steel, PH-hardening and 300/400 series stainless steel, nickel- and cobalt-base alloys, plus international-partner access to aluminum and titanium; also CNC machining, rapid prototyping, and onshoring/turnkey casting services.

Company Overview —

IPC Foundry Group's Texas operation began life in 1975 as Highland Lakes, a family-run casting business built by Bo and Bonnie Frankie, which spent nearly five decades supplying castings to the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries across Texas and neighboring states. In mid-2022 the Frankies passed the business to IPC Foundry Group, which retained the existing management team while investing heavily in automation, expanding the workforce, and diversifying into mining, marine, aircraft, and medical markets. By the end of 2023 the operation was fully rebranded as IPC Foundry Group – Texas. Combined with its Utah facility, IPC now operates a multi-site US foundry network specializing in large-format investment casting and onshoring — a particularly relevant capability for buyers who need UL-certified, US-based production and want to avoid the complexity of switching production partners. IPC pairs each customer with a dedicated point of contact and emphasizes engineering optimization during onboarding to reduce turnaround time and production cost.

Positioning: a US-based, multi-facility foundry network built around onshoring, large-format castings, and turnkey (stamping/finishing) services.

4. MetalTek Wisconsin Investcast (metaltek.com)

Established: Operating as part of MetalTek International, a metals manufacturing group with decades of casting heritage (MetalTek's broader divisions include over 70 years serving the defense market)
Headquarters: 661 South Twelfth Street, Watertown, Wisconsin, USA (MetalTek global HQ: Waukesha, Wisconsin)
Main Products: Investment castings from a few ounces up to 2,000+ lbs. pour weight, plus laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) metal additive manufacturing, vacuum melting, and machining/heat-treatment services.

Company Overview —

Wisconsin Investcast is MetalTek International's dedicated investment casting and metal additive manufacturing division, built specifically to serve high-compliance markets such as aerospace, defense, energy, and food processing. It is unusual among investment foundries for the sheer size range it covers — from small precision parts up to some of the largest investment castings produced anywhere, with cast weights exceeding 2,000 lbs. and a part envelope up to 60" x 50". Wisconsin Investcast routinely pours more than 100 alloys, including 300 and 400 series stainless steels, PH-grade stainless, nickel- and cobalt-base, and heat-resistant alloys, and also works with customers to develop modified grades for unique performance requirements. Certifications include ISO 9001:2015, AS9100D, MIL-I-45208, and Nadcap (weld upgrade, X-ray, FPI). Beyond casting, the division offers design-for-manufacturing, rapid-prototyped tooling (SLA/FDM patterns), HIP, machining, fabricated assemblies, and a full suite of NDT methods — positioning it as a single-source supplier for large, mission-critical metal components.

Positioning: best suited for buyers needing unusually large or heavy investment castings combined with metal additive manufacturing under one compliance-driven roof.

5. Franklin Precision Castings (franklincastings.com)

Established: Foundry roots date to 1878 (as Franklin Bronze & Alloy Company); began investment casting production in 1985 — celebrating 40 years of investment casting in 2025
Headquarters: 655 Grant Street, Franklin, Pennsylvania, USA
Main Products: Investment castings in 120+ standard and custom alloys — stainless steel, brass and bronze, nickel-, cobalt-, and aluminum-based alloys, and Ni-Hard — plus in-house tooling and CNC machining.

Company Overview —

Franklin Precision Castings (FPC) holds the distinction of being Pennsylvania's oldest continuously operating casting foundry, with roots reaching back to 1878. After a 1981 fire destroyed the original plant, owners John and Bob Barber rebuilt the facility and, in 1985, pivoted the business into investment casting to serve the glass-mold industry — a shift that grew into a diversified manufacturer serving pumps & valves, steel, oil & gas, food processing, automotive, mining, safety equipment, and defense. A $7 million expansion in 2005 brought the first Shell-O-Matic robotic shelling system in the US. In 2014 Franklin was acquired by Wall Colmonoy Corporation, a global metallurgical solutions company, strengthening its technical reach and complementing Wall Colmonoy's UK casting operations; the business was rebranded Franklin Precision Castings in 2024. Today FPC operates a 50,000-square-foot, ISO 9001:2015-certified, 100+ person facility in Franklin, PA, with 13 wax-injection presses, two 24-hour robotic shell rooms, six melting furnaces, and an in-house chemical/mechanical test lab — giving the foundry full design-to-delivery control over each casting program.

Positioning: one of the oldest US investment casting houses, now backed by Wall Colmonoy's metallurgical resources — strong for buyers who value in-house tooling and rapid turnaround.

6. American Casting Company (americancastingco.com)

Established: 1974
Headquarters: Hollister, California, USA (near Silicon Valley)
Main Products: Investment castings in nickel-based superalloys (vacuum melt), cobalt-based alloys (including implant-grade CoCrMo), and a wide range of stainless steels, supported by 3D-printed pattern technology.

Company Overview —

Since 1974, American Casting Company has built its reputation in Hollister, California on speed: where typical investment casting lead times are measured in months, American Casting's lean-manufacturing approach — combined with 3D printing for rapid pattern development and both air-induction and vacuum-induction melting — allows it to deliver complex castings in a matter of days for prototype and low-volume work. The company is ISO 9001 and AS9100 certified, positioning it for the aerospace and medical device sectors, where it processes superalloys for turbine and structural components as well as implant-grade cobalt-chromium alloys for orthopedic devices. American Casting also serves oil & gas and food processing customers, and its services extend to design-for-manufacturability, NADCAP heat treating, and non-destructive testing — making it a strong candidate for buyers who prioritize fast prototype-to-production cycles over sheer production scale.

Positioning: a speed-focused boutique foundry best suited to aerospace and medical buyers needing fast prototyping and superalloy/implant-grade casting expertise.

7. Qianhao / China Precise Casting (chinaprecisecasting.com)

Established: 1993/1994
Headquarters: Ningbo, Zhejiang, China (6 manufacturing bases, ~120,000 m² total)
Main Products: Silica-sol precision investment casting, lost-foam casting, sand casting, and machining/assembly in carbon steel, alloy steel, and stainless steel.

Company Overview —

Established in 1993 in Ningbo — a region with a multi-decade concentration of precision-metal manufacturing expertise — Qianhao (operating the chinaprecisecasting.com platform) has grown over more than 30 years from a small machining workshop into a vertically integrated investment casting group spanning six production sites and serving customers in over 40 countries. The company specializes in both silica-sol investment casting (delivering tighter CT5–CT6 tolerances and smoother Ra 1.6–3.2 µm surface finishes) and water-glass/lost-foam processes, and holds certifications including ISO 9001, IATF 16949, ISO 14001, CE, BV, and DNV. Qianhao's customer base includes major OEMs such as Bombardier (rail) and Hyundai/Doosan (automotive and construction equipment), reflecting its track record in regulated, OEM-grade supply chains. For global buyers, Qianhao positions itself around the classic China-sourcing value proposition — typically 40–60% lower unit cost than Western foundries at equivalent ISO-certified quality — supported by CNC wax injection, 6-axis robotic shell coating, CMM dimensional inspection, and OES spectrometer material verification.

Positioning: a large, OEM-proven Chinese investment casting group offering strong cost advantages for buyers comfortable sourcing from Ningbo's casting cluster.

8. Besser Casting (bessercasting.com)

Established: 2002
Headquarters: Ningbo, China (two facilities totaling roughly 32,000 m²)
Main Products: Investment castings in stainless steel, carbon steel, alloy steel, tool steel, and nickel-based alloys, using silica-sol and vacuum casting processes, with in-house CNC machining and surface finishing.

Company Overview —

Besser Casting was founded in 2002 and has grown into one of Ningbo's recognized investment casting factories, holding IATF 16949:2016 and ISO 9001:2015 certifications. The company has worked with more than 400 customers across 10+ countries and has developed over 4,000 distinct cast products, ranging from parts as small as 20 g up to roughly 200 kg. Besser runs both silica-sol casting (for superior surface finish and tight CT4–CT6 tolerances) and vacuum casting (for high-temperature nickel-based and Hastelloy alloys), supported by 14 vertical CNC machining centers and more than 16 types of surface-finishing processes. Its core served industries include construction hardware, automotive parts, hydraulic equipment, agricultural equipment, and rail, and the company emphasizes a transparent, ERP-tracked production process with simulation-based design review before tooling — useful for buyers evaluating new part development risk before committing to mass production.

Positioning: a mid-size, IATF/ISO-certified Chinese foundry well suited to mechanical, hardware, and automotive-parts buyers seeking a flexible, factory-direct supplier.

9. Signicast (signicast.com)

Established: 1959
Headquarters: Hartford, Wisconsin, USA (with additional plants in Brown Deer, WI; Hutchins, TX; and international Form Technologies sites)
Main Products: Investment castings in aluminum, nickel-based, and stainless steel alloys, plus in-house machining, heat treating, finishing, powder coating, and assembly.

Company Overview —

Signicast traces its origins to a small Milwaukee-area business making metal boat transoms before Bill Lewis purchased it and converted it into a dedicated investment casting company. Walter "Terry" Lutz joined in 1974 and later purchased Signicast in 1981, transforming it into what became the largest and most automated investment caster in the United States. The Hartford Manufacturing Complex, opened in 1993 and since expanded with multiple production modules, remains a flagship North American facility, alongside the Brown Deer, Wisconsin plant specializing in aluminum and nickel-based alloys. Signicast is now part of Form Technologies, a global holding company that also owns Dynacast (die casting) and OptiMIM (metal injection molding), giving Signicast access to a broader engineering and manufacturing network — most recently reflected in its 2025 acquisition of FS Precision to add titanium casting capability. Across its eight global manufacturing facilities, Signicast holds AS9100, ISO 9001, ISO 13485, IATF 16949, NADCAP, and ISO 50001 certifications, and is known for proprietary process automation and simulation tools aimed at reducing total cost and improving repeatability for high-volume OEM programs.

Positioning: a large-scale, highly automated North American investment caster — a strong fit for OEM buyers needing volume production with consistent repeatability.

10. Precision Castparts Corp. (precast.com)

Established: 1953 (casting operations trace to 1949), Joseph B. Cox founder
Headquarters: Portland / Lake Oswego, Oregon, USA
Main Products: Large, complex structural investment castings, airfoil castings for jet engines and industrial gas turbines, forged components, aerostructures, and critical fasteners.

Company Overview —

Precision Castparts Corp. (PCC) began in 1949 as a small investment casting operation under Oregon Chain Saw, and was formally established in 1953 with Joseph B. Cox as owner and Ed Cooley as general manager. Over the following decades PCC pioneered investment casting technology that enabled the production of much larger structural castings than had previously been possible, eventually becoming the global market leader in large complex structural investment castings and airfoil castings for jet aircraft engines (supplying GE, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls-Royce) as well as industrial gas turbines. Today PCC operates more than 120 manufacturing facilities worldwide with over 20,000 employees, and its product range has expanded through acquisitions (Wyman-Gordon forgings, SPS Technologies fasteners) to include extruded seamless pipe and forgings for power generation and oil & gas, commercial and military airframe structures, and specialty metal alloys. PCC manufactures what is reported to be the world's largest-diameter investment casting (76 inches) and has developed more than 75% of the nickel alloys used in the oil and gas industry. In January 2016, Berkshire Hathaway completed its $37.2 billion acquisition of PCC, giving the foundry exceptional financial backing for long-term capital investment. For buyers with large, mission-critical, and highly engineered aerospace or turbine components, PCC remains one of the few foundries in the world with the scale and metallurgical depth to deliver them.

Positioning: the world's largest and most capitalized investment casting/aerostructures manufacturer — the benchmark choice for large-scale jet engine and turbine castings.

How to Choose an Investment Casting Foundry: A Quick Buyer's Checklist

Certifications: Match the foundry's certifications (ISO 9001, AS9100, IATF 16949, NADCAP, ITAR/CMMC) to your industry's regulatory requirements.
Alloy range: Confirm the foundry routinely pours the specific alloy family your part requires — stainless, carbon/alloy steel, nickel/cobalt superalloys, aluminum, or titanium.
Part size and weight envelope: Foundries vary widely, from sub-ounce precision parts to castings exceeding 2,000 lbs. or 76 inches in diameter.
In-house capabilities: Tooling, CNC machining, heat treatment, NDT, and assembly under one roof generally reduce lead time and supply-chain risk.
Location and lead time: US/EU foundries often offer faster logistics and easier compliance audits; Chinese foundries typically offer significant cost advantages at comparable ISO-certified quality.
Track record: Look for OEM-approved supplier status (e.g., Boeing, GE Aerospace, Bombardier) as a proxy for proven quality systems.

This article is intended as an independent buyer's reference compiled from each company's publicly available website content as of 2026. Procurement teams should verify current certifications, capacity, and pricing directly with each foundry before sourcing.