No the cast lugs used up until the 1970s were not investment cast. The method was used was far cruder and hours upon hours of filing were needed to get a smooth shape as the lugs had casting marks all over and were very thick and heavy. That is why good quality pressed lugs became popular they needed far less filing and cleaning up. Investment cast lugs however need even less work and so have become popular in the last twenty years or so. I would not know who first used them but I do think that the likely origin in the first place was in all probability Italy. Hilary Stone
Ken Denny wrote:
... now, regarding cast lugs. I would defer to Hilary's informed
journalistic
> experience here, but it is my understanding that investment casting, using
> the lost wax technique, goes back way before Masi, Microfusione, and all the
> other Italians, to pre war England - (Chater, British Made, Oscar Egg,
> etc.).
>
in reply to Brian Bayliss:
>>
I think Masi was one of the first
>>(if not the first) company to make investment cast lugs. Microfussione
>>in Italy cast the first lugs. I always thought that Mario made the
>>"model lugs" for the Masi investment cast lugs. My question is, did
>>Mario ever build any Carlsbad Masis using the investment cast lugs? I
>>know Eisentraut was using them, and we used them when we came back in
>>June 1976. I just wonder when the first cast lugs arrived at Masi and
>>was Mario there then? I'm curious how much Mario was involved in the
>>development of the Masi lugs.