Compare sand, die, investment, lost foam. and continuous casting techniques.

Answer: Sand casting has advantages like suitability for both ferrous and non-ferrous metals, low tooling costs, and applicability for various production quantities. The disadvantages include rough surface finish, lower accuracy, and added time for creating molds. Die casting offers high dimensional accuracy, smooth surface finish, and high production rates. However, it has high initial costs, limited applicability to non-ferrous metals, and is not suitable for low-volume production. Investment casting has excellent surface finish, high dimensional accuracy, and allows for intricate designs, but it is more expensive than sand casting, has a slower production rate, and is limited to smaller parts. Lost foam casting offers good accuracy and surface finish, eliminates the need for cores, and requires minimal secondary finishing operations, but it has higher foam pattern costs, limited applicability to low melting point metals, and is optimal for low-volume production. Finally, continuous casting has a high production rate, consistent quality, and lower labor and material costs but is limited to simple, uniform shapes, has difficulty casting high melting point metals, and requires specialized equipment.