Artistic tendencies abound in metalcasting. People in the industry often refer to their manufacturing process as both an art and a science.

But for the most part, the artistic talents one finds in metalcasting facilities tend toward the visual arts. The ability to imagine solid metal pieces solidified of molten material is one that lends itself to the creation of sculpture, paintings and other decorative pieces.

Sam Ramrattan—if he’ll excuse the use of one of his own puns—breaks the mold. The industrial and manufacturing engineering professor in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Western Michigan Univ., Kalamazoo, Mich., is a part-time poet. At the 113th Metalcasting Congress in Las Vegas, Ramrattan took the opportunity of receiving an AFS Award of Scientific Merit to regale the audience with a poem he penned for the occasion. Following is the metalcaster poet’s work; be on the lookout for a number of clever industry puns like the one above:

THE FOUNDRYMAN
by Sam Ramrattan

A spell was cast using fire and ore.
Giants walked among men.
A profession since the sands of time;
A Foundry Society bonded with inclusions of art and science.

From Ages of Bronze and Iron, through an Industrial Revolution;
Plows, cannons, bells and engines; shaped by Masters.
Malleable minds molded in their image; we tap their reservoirs.
The die was cast; Foundrymen made of the same mold.

Safe: The noise our music;
The sparks our fireworks;
The danger our excitement;
Man of steel: Superman or Foundryman?

Arising from out of a crucible.
Ancient process, modern methods;
An industry in continual flux,
The Foundryman a catalyst for change.

Pegged as polluters, what a drag!
Hardened by Standards we cope.
Tempered with the fact that we are our civilization’s first recyclers.
Cladded with the materials of a possible future;
The Foundryman’s love etched in my mind.

Waterworks metalcasters often have unique customer lists.

EBAA Iron Co., Eastland, Texas, for example, sells its line of water pipe restraint products primarily through wholesale distribution centers, such as Ferguson Underground and HD Supply (Home Depot’s wholesale arm). Contractors purchase the products from those locations and use them in their projects. (Check out this article in our sister publication MODERN CASTING for more information on EBAA Iron.)

And according to Contractor magazine, Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, Charlotte, N.C., operates similarly. The magazine points to a recent episode of the seminal “This Old House,” in which contractor Richard Trethewey uses the metalcaster’s pipes and fittings in a plumbing repair project. Trethewey doesn’t mention the metalcaster by name, but if Contractor is correct, you can see the product in the four minute video here.

If you’re unable to stream video on your computer, we’ll ruin the suspense—Trethewey successfully installs the Charlotte Pipe parts and leaves the old house working like new.

Finally, the metalcasting industry gets some quality play for the efforts it’s making to be more environmentally friendly.

In a recent article in the New York Times, decorative investment caster SA Baxter, Chester, N.Y., is heralded as one of a number of metalcasting facilities that has introduced green practices. Per the article:

At Baxter’s factory…no lead is used, no wastewater is produced, almost no emissions are released into the atmosphere, and many of the materials used are recycled.

Of course, at least part of that statement (“many of the materials used are recycled”) is true of basically every metalcasting facility in the country—heck, the world—but the industry will take the praise where it can get it. What’s more, the generally left-leaning NYT does go on to implicate some of the rest of the industry:

Baxter is not the only foundry using cleaner techniques. Makers of products like auto parts, jet engines and medical devices use some of the same technology. But the companies often do not sell directly to consumers and are not necessarily marketed as green.

Again, we’d like to protest the last part of that statement, but it’s good to see the metalcasting industry getting a green thumbs-up.

For part designers and component sourcing specialists who deal with castings frequently, the unique design capabilities of the process can be taken for granted, but every so often we come across a customer still learning about metalcasting who is blown away by what can be achieved by pouring molten metal in a mold. This year’s Casting of the Year, which was awarded at the AFS Metalcasting Congress last week and will be featured in the May/June issue of MetalCasting Design and Purchasing, was such a success, it made not just a casting believer but a casting lover out of its customer.

Although Polaris Industries, a maker of snowmobiles, ATVs and motorcycles, had sourced castings to prototype specialist Craft Pattern and Mold before, its most recent project, a cast aluminum component for the frame of a concept motorcycle, was a unique application. Converted from a steel fabrication, it integrated 20 parts into a single piece and helped the motorcycle designers achieve the minimalist concept that was the inspiration behind the whole project.

When our editors spoke with Greg Brew, director of industrial design at Polaris, he had plenty to say about the advantages of the casting process.

“You have this great medium that doesn’t hold you back when you want to do just a really crazy shape,” He told us. “It can do things that would be a headache in any other medium. I just love it.”

The judges love it too. Congratulations to Craft Pattern of Maple Plain, Minn., for producing this year’s Casting of the Year. 

And here we thought we were the only news outlet sharing videos of the metalcasting facility tours we do around the country.

In a recent equipment spotlight, Golf Digest and NBC Sports looked at the different kinds of irons used by golfers and how they are made. The five-minute video the magazine editors produced highlights primarily cavity back irons, which are made in the investment casting process.

In the course of its research for the piece, Golf Digest visited Dolphin Precision Investment Castings, Phoenix, Ariz. The video includes shots from the facility’s yard, wax room, melting and pouring areas, shakeout, and finishing room.

Investment casting is used to produce cacvity back irons because forging, the other primary iron-producing process, simply cannot match the ability of the casting process to produce forgiving irons with deeply inset back cavities, often with undercuts. For more information on the difference between the irons created by the two processes, check out the article “Metalcasting Works Fore Golfers” in the July/August 2007 issue of Engineered Casting Solutions.

In a bit of a roundabout way, an article recently published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) News Office says what we’ve been saying all along: metalcasting might be the most efficient way to make your complex engineered components.

We tend to drive this point home from the perspective of your bottom line—the metalcasting process might save you some money if you convert your components from a less efficient process. The MIT article looks at various manufacturing processes strictly from the perspective of their efficiency of energy and materials use. And the results are favorable to metalcasters.

According to the article, “new manufacturing systems are anywhere from 1,000 to one million times bigger consumers of energy, per pound of output, than more traditional industries.” Then, the story goes on to include the metalcasting industry more explicitly in this group of traditional processes. “In short, pound for pound, making microchips uses up orders of magnitude more energy than making manhole covers.”

Manhole covers? Why, those are cast metal! The MIT guys then ponder what it means to “make comparisons between such widely disparate processes as metal casting [sic] and chip making” and determine that the newer industries should take a look at the more traditional metalcasters and try to learn from them.

And, as we’ve said so many times before, we think you should take a look at the efficiency of the more traditional metalcasters, as well.

Is it just us, or does Facebook seem to be in the news a lot lately? The most recent item we’ve seen is the assertion by a British neuroscientist that Facebook and other social networking sites will result in “infantilized” minds in the 21st Century.

Chicago Tribune also posted a blog entry Tuesday on tips for giving up Facebook during Lent.

Feels like Facebook is invading the entire universe. Well, now metalcasting is invading Facebook. Our staff has created its very own Facebook page for MetalcastingDesign.com. Check us out here. You can become a fan of the page if you’re already one of the thousands of “infantilized” minds logged into Facebook (hey-we’re not judging, we’re regressing along with you.)

In all seriousness, we do feel like entering into the online networking realm is beneficial to establishing a community among our readers. So log on and see what our staff and other metal heads in the industry are up to. We’ve also created a group in LinkedIn, a more business-oriented online networking group. Go here to check it out. You’ll have to be a LinkedIn member to view more of this group’s page.

See you online.
 

Before the big game this past weekend, we saw some castings while watching the NFL during championship week. (Are we getting paid for this overtime?)

The castings weren’t on the field of play, of course (although the Steelers defense often looks like it’s composed of engineered metal components). Instead, they took center stage in an advertisement for the Toyota Tundra.

In the 30-second spot, Toyota highlights the Tundra’s power train. On the right side of an oversized balance is a “cast iron V-8 block [that] makes your truck weigh more,” and on the left is an “aluminum [block] that lets you tow more.”

The announcer doesn’t say so, but of course the block on the left is also cast. According to marketing representative Erin Poole, the part is in fact cast at Toyota-owned metalcasting facility Bodine Aluminum.

Regardless of the use of the word “cast” with the iron block but not the aluminum one, both of the parts are intended in the commercial to look like mean components that make up a mean machine. And the engineered, cohesive look of the castings helps pull that intention off.

Remember, this is the line of trucks that have been featured in some of the more over-the-top truck advertisements ever produced. Namely, the ones showing the Tundra pulling off death defying feats with relative ease—bringing a 10,000-lb. trailer quickly to a stop down a steep grade, stopping at the edge of a gorge after barreling through a tight gate, etc. The company also went all out to show just how tough the Tundra is during this year’s Super Bowl. So the castings used in the more subtle campaign have big shoes to fill.

And according to Poole, castings haven’t made their last appearance in the Tundra commercials. The truck also features a cast steel brake rotor that will make an appearance in the campaign sometime in the near future. Keep yours eyes out for it, and tell your boss you did some industry research while watching TV.

For all you metal heads and sports fans, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) has revealed the history behind the Pittsburgh Steelers helmet logo in time for the upcoming Super Bowl between the Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals this Sunday.

According to AISI, the Steelers adopted the logo in 1962, borrowing it from the institute’s Steelmark logo.

“The Steelmark was originally created for United States Steel Corporation to promote the attributes of steel:  yellow lightens your work; orange brightens your leisure; and blue widens your world.  The logo’s meaning was later amended to represent the three materials used to produce steel:  yellow for coal; orange for iron ore; and blue for steel scrap.”

Feel free to drop this nugget of trivia at your Super Bowl party this weekend.

An article in the September/October 2006 edition of ECS ended with a heck of a prediction.

The soothsayer was Jim Schneck, subject of the article “Put It in Reverse,” which detailed the plight of a group of metalcasters looking to recreate the engine cylinder head of the rare and expensive Duesenberg Model J. (No need to dig up your back issues—see a full, printable PDF here.)

“Jay Leno called,” Schneck told an ECS reporter at the time. “He’s interested in this project.”

Boy was he ever. Now, after having bought the first head successfully produced by Schneck and his team, Leno has written an article for Popular Mechanics heralding the efforts of metalcasters and other craftsmen in keeping classic cars on the road and in the showrooms.

Leno’s discussion of the metalcasting process is cursory, and he gets a touch mushy with nostalgia for the old days, but his ability to put the Duesenberg in automotive context makes the article worth reading. In case you don’t have time to get through the whole piece, here’s the last paragraph.

“Thanks to Jim Schneck, you can make that Duesenberg run again. To anyone who plans to re-create a much-needed part for other vintage automobiles, I say: Thank you. You will be revered by those of us who cherish them.”

That’s another prediction that is likely to come true.