Q. Is olivine sand better for casting than silica sand?

A. Yes!

While olivine sand is more expensive than other types of molding sands, it has several advantages over the silica sands commonly used in the foundry industry.

One advantage is the health benefit: by replacing silica sand with olivine, there is no silica dust in the molding area, which has been linked to lung damage.

Olivine also exhibits one third of the thermal expansion compared to many other sands. This results in greater dimension stability or tighter casting tolerances. In some cases, this can allow customers to use green sand casting instead of more costly processes and to reduce the cost of finishing parts that have been cast.

The third major advantage that olivine provides is a better cast surface finish.

We believe that these advantages to our customers easily offset the increase in the initial purchase price of our molding sand.