Abstract: Continuous casting apparatus is provided having a highly conductive, cooled flow-through mold, a feeder for the mold having an upstream and a downstream section with the downstream section in abutment with the mold, a heater associated with the upstream section for maintaining metal in contact therewith above liquidus temperature, the feeder sections being made of refractory material and dimensioned such that the heat from the upstream section is not bled off so rapidly into the cooling elements of the adjacent mold as to start the strand shell development in the upstream section, but sufficiently to let it start in the downstream secton of the feeder.