When it comes to government regulations, we are, for the most part, a reactive industry. The U.S. (or state level) Environmental Protection Agency proposes a rule, metalcasters debate it, a compromise of some form is met, and a rule is published. Our industry then spends the time up until the rule’s start date ensuring our facilities are in compliance. For some facilities, compliance is easy. For others, 100% compliance may mean closing.

What about non-regulatory environmental issues?  Is your plant clean and well lit? Could the noise level be reduced?  Is it well organized?

Most metalcasting markets across the globe are in the same position as we are. But from our experience, one metalcasting nation appears to have a different approach—Japan. In a recent tour through some Japanese metalcasting facilities, we were surprised at the environmental investment we saw:

• In one large-flask nobake facility, employees swept up spilled sand around the flask after finishing a mold, and the molds were moved to an enclosed room for pouring, cool down and shakeout to ensure all emissions were captured.
• An iron and aluminum facility that exclusively utilizes shell cores had fully enclosed each of its 40 core machines to ensure zero emissions or odor entered the rest of the facility.
• One high-production iron facility had installed a hood to draw emissions off furnaces during melting and ladles during melt transfer and pouring.
• All of the plants were built without pits. If a pit were required, manufacturing was raised above ground level.
• Instead of horns blasting an alert when molten metal was transferred, children’s songs were played.

When we asked one of the metalcasting plant owners about the expense of these types of environmental initiatives, his response (via a translator) was, “The cost is high, but the cost of not doing it is higher. We believe our workers produce better in the best
environment.” Several of the metalcasting facility owners said that approximately 10% of the cost of recent plant expansions/new plant development was targeted toward environmental control. They seemed proud of these environmental investments as much as the new molding lines and furnaces they installed.

For North American metalcasting, a light at the end of the environmental tunnel may one day appear. It will require growth from our government, our communities and us, but it does appear to be possible.

Minnesota Public Radio posted a nice story on Minneapolis’ Smith Foundry this week. Because of the recession, the metalcasting facility’s owner Neil Ahlstrom asked its union for cuts in pay, healthcare, pension contributions and vacation last June. The union agreed to the one-year contract and then to a 6-month extension this summer. In return, Ahlstrom signed a 3-year contract starting January 1, 2011, that reinstates all the workers’ benefits and adds pay raises of about 5% over three years.

Smith’s labor negotiations provide a warm example of how an employer and its union workforce can work together to ensure the company—and its jobs—remain in business. The key here is while the union made some concessions, Ahlstrom showed he was committed to returning the benefits and pay his workers were sacrificing.

Similar stories of unions working with metalcasters to stay in business have surfaced as companies fight to survive the recession, including the recent dramatic union change-of-heart that kept Navistar’s Indianapolis engine casting facility open this summer.

We hope and trust that as employees (union and non-union alike) make sacrifices to keep their companies going, their employers will make the appropriate adjustments to wages and benefits as business returns.
 

It was the best of times, it was the—well let’s just hope it was the best of times for both of the producers of two metalcasting-related videos we recently watched.

Here at MODERN CASTING, we go to great lengths to make the metalcasting industry look good. And “good” can take on a variety of forms, as evidenced by the two videos in question.

The first picture is from a supplier of molding machines. The Herron Casting Machine is a bottom filling vertical mold maker for high casting production—an idea that is not new but has never really taken off. While the video for the machine feels melodramatic at times, the passion for the casting industry is overwhelming. Of particular interest is the montage at the beginning of the footage of different castings found around the city of Chicago.

The second video was produced by students and professors of metalcasting at Central Washington Univ. This film is college-cool, with rock music playing over images of students building and testing an in-your-face centrifugal supercharger.

Whether it’s playing up the importance of castings to civilization itself or just being effortlessly cool, videos like these can show metalcasting in the best of lights. And that’s good for the industry.

We’ve published a number of articles on trends in the magnesium industry over the past several years, and they all point to one inalienable truth—magnesium is an expensive material for North American metalcasters to pour. But the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) could change that.

According to an article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the ITC has voted to “conduct a full review of 5-year-old tariffs imposed on imported magnesium.”

The newspaper says the decision was in no small part owed to the efforts of Spartan Light Metal Products, Sunset Hills, Mo., which produces die castings in various nonferrous materials.

Nothing has been decided by ITC yet, but this could be the first step in helping magnesium gain a firmer foothold in the metal component marketplace. That would mean good things for designers interested in light-weighting initiatives, as well as the metalcasters that serve them.

A Monday review of metalcasters making the news brought up a story about an explosion at a Milwaukee casting facility over the weekend. The fire caused by the explosion was quickly contained by fire fighters, but two workers were injured.

Explosions are known hazards that metalcasters work to eliminate, but everyone must be aware of the causes. It’s not clear what was the cause of the explosion over the weekend, but an article in the upcoming July issue of MODERN CASTING addresses several steps metalcasters should take to eliminate the chance for water or moisture to enter the melt, which is one of the major causes of molten metal explosions. 

The tips, presented by the Health and Safety Committee of the American Foundry Society, are important procedures that should be followed. They include inspecting material that goes into the melt for residual moisture, preheating charge materials and tools, and keeping the furnace pit area clean and dry. Your workers’ safety and your business’s capital, equipment and reputation are at stake.

While driving to the Birmingham airport just a day after touring U.S. Pipe’s new ductile iron pipe casting plant in Bessemer, Ala., one of our editors spotted this flatbed truck rolling down the highway.

Yep, those are the company’s very products on delivery to a customer. (And yep, our editor risked life and limb to snap this photo while driving.) Are these the same pipes we had seen come off the line of the Marvel City Mini Mill? Maybe not. But at least we know the guys at the plant weren’t lying to us. They’re at least making some sales.
 

According to several news outlets, China may finally be making a change to the way it values its currency, an issue that has been stuck in the metalcasting industry’s craw for sometime now.

Casting industry lobbyists say the Chinese are able to offer cheap castings to U.S. customers because the country pegs the value of its currency to the dollar. And vice versa, that bit of economic tomfoolery makes U.S. goods more expensive in China, escalating the trade imbalance even further.

Recent rumblings out of China indicate the currency manipulation could at the very least be relaxed. But don’t take our word for it, check out these two reports in the popular press about the developments (we’ve provided one “conservative” and one “liberal” source for your reading/judgment-making pleasure):

• Wall Street Journal
• New York Times

The metalcasting industry is well aware of the need for young talent. Some would argue you can’t start the search too soon. The Univ. of Northern Iowa’s Metal Casting Center recently held three workshops for more than 50 Boy Scouts in which each scout participating in the molding, fabricating and melting of Dutch ovens commemorating the Boy Scouts of America’s 100th anniversary. During the six-hour workshops, UNI metalcasting students and area metalcasters instructed the scouts on the casting process and safety.

According to UNI professor Jerry Thiel, donations of materials came from Ashland Casting Solutions, American Pattern, Fairmount Minerals, HA International, John Deere Waterloo Foundry, UNIMIN and Viking Engineered Castings.

Kudos to UNI and the participating businesses for sharing the industry with potential metalcasting leaders.

For 17 years, Leonardo Da Vinci researched how to produce Il Cavallo, a huge equine statue to be made out of bronze in a single pour. But when he finally had the clay model built and ready to be cast, all the needed bronze was taken to be used for a war against France. The mold and model were destroyed, and the statue was Da Vinci’s “horse that never was.” Despite Da Vinci’s confidence in the design, however, many engineers believed the casting would never have been successful any way. Recent advances in casting simulation technology provided a way to prove Da Vinci right.

The Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy, sought to test DaVinci’s design and worked with XC Engineering (an Italian associate of Flow Science, Santa Fe., N.M.) to conduct a casting simulation for the artwork. The result: Da Vinci’s 24-ft.-high, 70-ton bronze horse would have been successfully cast in a single pour in 165 seconds.

A video about the project can be viewed on the Discovery Channel’s website: http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/leonardo-davinci-cavallo-statue.html.

Apparently, there is some dissention among the countries we tend to think of, sometimes stereotypically, as low cost manufacturers.

In an article that recently ran on the website of India’s Business Standard (one of the largest daily newspapers in the country), columnist Dilip Kumar Jha complained that China is “too cheap.” 

Does this finally lend credence to the many years of complaints from North American metalcasters saying the exact same thing?

Let’s be honest. When a casting is made, several fixed costs don’t change no matter where in the world the part is made: metal prices, energy costs, shipping. The biggest variable is human costs. When you compare the cost of labor between China and North America, the difference is obvious. But comparing India to China? Add the cost of shipping, and you should have a wash. Apparently not, according to Jha.

Even with the lower labor costs, something is missing. What if we un-pegged the Yuan from the dollar? Then, China’s ongoing program of deflating its currency to ensure its exports remain competitive might make the economic water level rise—globally. That would be interesting.