METAL CASTING & METAL WORKING

Non-Ferrous Metals For Industrial Applications

ACC Knows Metal Casting Advanced Materials

American Carbon produces non-ferrous metal castings, the manufacturing process behind BADGERCOAST Galvanic Anodes, BADGERCONNECT Magnesium Anodes, and some BADGERCUSTOM Solutions, alongside a full range of metal working services including extrusion, forging, and machining. Non-ferrous metals (aluminum, magnesium, zinc, copper, and titanium) replace steel and iron wherever weight and corrosion resistance matter more than raw material cost, construction, transportation, and electronics manufacturers specify non-ferrous castings and extrusions for structural brackets, enclosures, and conductive hardware for exactly that reason. American Carbon specializes in BADGERADVANCED Titanium and BADGERADVANCED Magnesium alloys for applications where corrosion resistance and weight savings justify the material premium over steel, the specific governing casting standards and density figures behind that tradeoff are covered in the Non-Ferrous Casting tab below.

Grain Refinement Through Extrusion

Metal working shapes, bends, and cuts metal to produce a finished product, and it covers more ground than casting alone: forging, rolling, stamping, wire drawing, and tube forming are all standard parts of the toolkit. Extrusion sits apart from the others in what it does to the material itself, not just its shape.

Through heat and the extrusion process, the grain structure of the metal becomes more homogenous, producing a stronger, more consistent finished part than the same alloy would yield through casting alone. Aluminum billet is typically preheated to roughly 750-930°F before it's pushed through the die; magnesium extrudes at a lower range, generally 570-780°F, reflecting its lower melting point relative to aluminum.

Combined with machining, American Carbon extrudes parts across a wide range of industries: structural framing, custom fittings, electrical bus bars and conductive hardware, heat sinks and thermal components, marine hardware, and transportation parts where weight matters as much as strength. Alloy selection comes down to what the part needs to do. BADGERADVANCED Titanium and BADGERADVANCED Magnesium make sense where weight and corrosion resistance outweigh raw material cost, while aluminum, copper, and other non-ferrous alloys cover the rest of the range.

Density, ASTM Specs & Embedded Inserts

Non-ferrous casting covers a range of processes chosen by tolerance, price point, and production volume: gravity-feed sand casting and permanent metal-mold casting for lower-volume or larger parts, and high-pressure die casting for tight tolerances at higher volumes. American Carbon die-casts aluminum components to ASTM B85/B85M and magnesium components to ASTM B94 for die-cast and ASTM B403 for sand casting.

A specialty within that process is embedding objects directly into the casting, steel connection points, threaded inserts, or wear surfaces, so the finished part combines a non-ferrous body with a steel wear point in a single casting rather than a secondary assembly step.

The case for non-ferrous casting comes down to density. Magnesium alloys run about 1.74 g/cm³ against roughly 7.85 g/cm³ for steel, a weight reduction of close to 78%, and about 35% lighter than aluminum at 2.70 g/cm³. Combined with corrosion resistance that doesn't depend on a coating, that difference is why non-ferrous castings replace steel in parts where service life and handling weight matter. Magnesium alloys are typically cast in the 1,200-1,300°F range, well below steel's melting point, which also reduces mold wear and energy cost per part.

BADGERADVANCED Graphite is the mold, crucible, and tray material American Carbon uses for most non-ferrous castings, chosen for its thermal stability at these temperatures.

Frequently asked questions

By density, magnesium comes in around 1.74 g/cm³, next to steel's roughly 7.85 g/cm³ and aluminum's 2.70 g/cm³, putting it at about a quarter of steel's weight and roughly two-thirds of aluminum's. Paired with corrosion resistance that doesn't rely on a surface coating, that weight difference is the core reason non-ferrous castings displace steel wherever handling weight or service life is the deciding factor.

Extrusion pushes heated metal through a die, which makes the grain structure more homogenous than casting produces, yielding a stronger, more consistent finished part from the same alloy. Aluminum billet is typically preheated to roughly 750-930°F before extrusion, while magnesium extrudes at a lower 570-780°F range, reflecting its lower melting point relative to aluminum. Thixomolding closes some of that gap for magnesium parts that need near-net-shape geometry rather than a straight extrusion profile: injecting a semi-solid magnesium slurry, rather than a fully molten one, produces a finer, more uniform grain structure and lower porosity than conventional die casting, giving parts roughly 10% higher tensile strength and better fatigue performance than die-cast equivalents, though still short of what a true extrusion achieves.

METAL CASTING & METAL WORKING

Non-Ferrous Metals For Industrial Applications

Grain Refinement Through Extrusion

Density, ASTM Specs & Embedded Inserts

Frequently asked questions

How much lighter is magnesium than steel and aluminum in cast parts?

What casting standards does American Carbon build aluminum and magnesium components to?

Why does an extruded part end up stronger than a cast part in the same alloy?

Can a non-ferrous casting include a steel wear surface without a separate assembly step?

When does it make sense to choose titanium or magnesium over aluminum or steel for a part?