The morphology of solidification microstructure is difficult to control in a casting process, in which only the grain size can be easily changed. Directional solidification techniques can fabricate the casting of columnar structures growing along one direction. In this work, Sn-Pb alloy (Sn-10 wt%Pb alloy) was used as the testing material and three designed experimental models of different thermal environments were designed to study their effects on the solidification microstructures, also compared with directional solidification mechanism. In this experimental study, thermal couples were used to measure the axial temperature distributions of the casting. After the solidification, the macro and micro structures were observed. The effects of these three models on preferred growth direction of dendrite, grain size, the constraint of dendrite growth, temperature gradient, growth rate were investigated.