4. Industrial importance

Casting is an important sector of industrial activity, supplying finished parts that can be used directly (album foundries: road construction, heating, etc.) or parts that, after machining and finishing, can be integrated into mechanical assemblies or sub-assemblies (gearboxes, engines for automobiles, industrial vehicles, etc.).

From an industrial point of view, foundries can be classified into three main sectors, according to the type of activity.

• Art and ornamental foundries: they use traditional molding processes, but also more special processes such as lost-wax casting, with elastomers for example. This is the domain of highly skilled art foundrymen, whose talent has associated the name of the foundry with the works of the greatest sculptors, from antiquity to the present day.

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