Articles: Industry News

Yamaha Precision Propellers Inc. (YPPI) completed a new, greenfield investment casting plant in March, 2021, among the cornfields of Greenfield, Indiana, about 30 minutes east of Indianapolis. This rare opening of a new “lost wax” facility to manufacture over two dozen types of stainless steel propellers is only the first coat on a range of innovations inside the $20-million, 55,000-sq.-ft. foundry. 

Continuing its expansion strategy, the Lawton Standard Co. recently added Northern Iron & Machine (NIM), St. Paul, Minnesota, to its family of companies, increasing Lawton’s offerings by both size and method. NIM produces and machines high-quality, cast gray, as well as ductile, and austempered iron castings up to 250 lbs. 

AFS Corporate Member Alpha Resources LLC, Stevensville, Michigan, an aftermarket supplier of consumables and reference materials, has added supplies for Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) analysis to its product line. In-stock OES supplies include: electrodes, syringes, o-rings, filters, vacuum pumps, and more. 

Alpha’s new OES products are compatible with OES analysis equipment from OEMs such as Thermo Fisher Scientific and Bruker. The high-quality lab supplies are compatible for aftermarket use in the specified analyzers. 

The Brynavon Group has acquired AFS Corporate Member Effort Foundry, Inc. in Bath, Pennsylvania. Effort Foundry, Inc. has been in business since 1971 and produces castings for pumps, valves, power generation, and general industrial application in a wide variety of alloys including steel, stainless, ni-based, ductile iron, and gray iron.

Rio Tinto is investing $29 million to build a new aluminum recycling facility at its Arvida plant in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec, to expand its offering of low-carbon aluminum solutions for customers in the automotive, packaging and construction markets. 

 The facility will make Rio Tinto the first primary aluminum producer in North America to incorporate recycled post-consumer aluminum into aluminum alloys. 

AFS Corporate Member Craft Pattern & Mold is now running casting process simulation software from EKK. EKKcapcast is a powerful, finite element tool that analyzes both mold flow and solidification behavior of ferrous and non-ferrous alloys. 

On September 9, Fort Wayne, Indiana-based MetalX completed the transaction to acquire the assets and business of secondary aluminum melter SRT Aluminum in Wabash, Indiana, now operating as MetalX Aluminum Conversion LLC (MAC).

David Currence has been named plant manager of MAC and will be responsible for leading the company’s efforts to refine operating performance and increase capacity. Joe Rosengarten, former SRT chief operating officer, joins the MetalX commercial team as a vice president. More than 120 SRT employees have been retained by MAC.  

McWane Ductile Ohio—part of the McWane, Inc. family of companies––has announced a $45 million total investment in its Coshocton County plant. Its investment has more than doubled since the initial $21.5 million collaboration was finalized with JobsOhio, the Ohio Department of Development, Ohio Southeast Economic Development (OhioSE) and the Coshocton County Port Authority, including a 1.372%, six-year Job Creation Tax Credit from the Ohio Tax Credit Authority. 

Britain’s National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) and UK-based technology company, Rawwater, are collaborating to trial a novel means of sealing harmful environmental leaks of Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6) by reducing emissions from small bore pipework. A powerful greenhouse gas, SF6 is a safety feature of gas insulated switchgear (GIS) equipment, a key component of electricity transmission systems.

AFS Corporate Member Buck Co. Inc., in conjunction with its parent company, The Dixon Group, has acquired Richmond Foundry LLC, a 50-year-old AFS Corporate member in Dayton, New Jersey, that produces high-quality brass and bronze sand castings. Richmond’s 40,000-sq.-ft. facility adds capacity and capabilities that will benefit both companies’ customers.