Talk:Foundry

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Are the degrees in fahrenheit or celcius?

The degrees should be in Celsius. I have changed them.

all4metals 12:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


There is no mention of the blasting and cleaning segment of the casting making process. It is pretty important because we don't machine parts that are still covered in scortched sand! Unless it is irrelevant. The foundry I work in has 40 people in the blasting department, which constitutes about 20% of the workforce. I can try to snag a picture of someone blasting a casting at work, if it is important enough.. Although it might ruin my camera. Let me know what you guys think.

Ic8ntsurf 05:36, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

You should add something to the cleaning section. Castings are usually surface cleaned by steel or iron grit or shot. Other media is often used in the surface cleaning operation, such as glass beads, aluminum oxide, and even shot made of other metals such as stainless steel, copper or aluminum. 40 people or 20% (of 200?) seems to be too many. In most foundries I have seen with 200 people there are only 3-6 involved in the actual surface blasting operation because it is done by machinery. A picture would be good to add. Mfields1 21:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I may have misspoken, we have 4 people doing surface blasting, and about 30 running the machines that throw shot using wheels, 8 operating forklifts, which constitutes the entire department. It also turns out that our foundry has 280 employees, so my numbers were a little off. Anyways, I like the addition to the article that you made! Ic8ntsurf 06:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
In many foundries that pour metals at high temperatures (i.e. steel at ~2900 degrees F), there is a lot of cleaning work to do because a lot of sand can get burned on at those temperatures. Steel castings also often have a lot of rigging (the gating through which the molten metal flows into the mold) and risers (these act as reservoirs of molten metal to feed the casting as it shrinks to prevent hot-tearing or shrinkage voids) due to the high solidification shrinkage of steel, that have to be removed, so in steel foundries a major portion of the workforce can be in the cleaning area. 72.16.169.146 (talk) 14:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
In the earlier discussion the question centered on specifically persons operating shot blasting equipment. Of course a major portion of the workforce in any foundry is involved in casting 'cleaning' but this includes persons doing the following: removal of gates and risers (these people may be called 'de-spruers' or 'shakeout' people), persons operating plasma arc or cutting torches for the purpose of removing gates or risers by torch, persons operating a shotblast machine (shotblast operator or sometimes called 'handblast' operator), persons using air or electric hand tools who 'grind', 'sand' or perhaps 'chisel' surfaces, persons handling material, by crane or forklift, etc. and perhaps persons doing visual inspections or hand polishing a casting surface. In most foundries however all of these are lumped together as 'cleaning' or 'fettling' department personell. The sum of all these workers may equal one third to one half of the workforce in a foundry. But, the persons who, strictly speaking, only operate the shotblast machine (exclusive of other cleaning work) are ususally only 2-5% of the entire foundry workforce. Mfields1 (talk) 00:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have an image of a shot blasting machine? It would probably help readers understand what is going on.

the topics coverd are very basic, Also the ref mentioned are comercial, there should be topics like the microstucture controle which should be covered in detail, Also the costing procedure should from the comercila point of view. Thanks

if commercial sites are referenced they should not be used. The microstructure control is generally (though not only) used in ductile iron work. It is not so often used in steel, bronze, brass or aluminum. The costing procedure could be an entirely different article but since it varies greatly from foundry to foundry it would be difficult to write an article about it. The main factors in costing are casting weight, casting yield, molding method (i.e. labor content), cleaning content, heat treat required and testing requirements. Each casting can be unique in that regard. Suffice it to say that castings should not ever be sold on the "per kilo" or "per pound" basis though this is often done. The metal used in a casting may represent only 5% to 40% of the cost to make a casting. Foundries should know primarily their material costs, labor costs, energy costs and capitalization costs. Taken into acount should also be testing costs (if specified by the customer) and a 'difficulty factor' which allows for the foundry yield when scrap mistakes are counted. Mfields1 (talk) 00:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)