Due to special requirements, some castings must be post-treated, such as heat treatment, shaping, rust prevention, rough machining and so on. Counterweight iron is an economical blank forming method, which can show its economy for parts with complex shapes, such as cylinder block and cylinder head of automobile engine, propeller of ship and exquisite works of art, etc.

Some difficult-to-cut parts, such as nickel-based alloy parts of gas turbines, cannot be molded without counterweight iron. In addition, the size and weight of counterweight iron parts are widely applicable, and the types of metals are almost unlimited. Parts not only have general mechanical properties, but also have comprehensive properties such as wear resistance, corrosion resistance and shock absorption, which cannot be achieved by forging, rolling, welding, stamping and other metal forming methods.

Therefore, the number and tonnage of blank parts produced by counterweight iron method are still the largest in machinery manufacturing industry. The materials often used in the production of counterweight iron are various metals, coke, wood, plastics, gas and liquid fuels, molding materials and so on. The required equipment includes various furnaces for smelting metals, sand mixers for mixing sand, molding machines and core-making machines for modeling and core-making, sand mixers and shot blasting machines for cleaning castings.

There are also machines and equipment for special counterweight iron, as well as many transportation and material handling equipment. The production of counterweight iron is different from other processes, such as wide adaptability, more materials and equipment needed, and great environmental pollution. The production of counterweight iron will produce dust, harmful gas and noise, which is more serious than other mechanical manufacturing processes and needs to be controlled by measures.