I would like to thank everyone for letting me in the forum. I am an aluminum green sand man. 50 years molding, I have built my own shop. Built it on a shoestring. The shop is now an aluminum jobbing foundry, 2, 300 pound gas fired, forced air furnaces with a melt capacity of 3,000 pounds a day. That is 8 hours. We are running 120 semi-angular sand with a 50-50 mix of southern bentonite and western, I happen to like the extra strength. We try to keep the bond somewhere between 7-9% This is a gourmet shop for aluminum casting buyers. The processes from sand control to melt/pouring are micro-managed. Computers cannot manage controls as well as an experienced hand. The little things really do make a difference. Customers include Norfolk Railway, CSX, Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Edison Electric, and the US Army. Our niche is short to medium run production parts. That is one mold to several hundred molds per order. Our best parts are under 20 pounds But we can do up to 500, rather not though. I grew up in an aluminum foundry. Traveled over the country working in foundries picking out best practices and little known tools for making the job easier and certainly better castings...did that for about 15 years, in 1994 I built my first shop in Atlanta, in 1999 I needed a bigger shop, found the perfect building in Anniston. This is an old pipe shop built I think in the early 50's, Steel and concrete! Anyway, I am semi-retired, and, well guess I just like to talk shop. Thanks for letting me on here.... Ben
Hi Ben, How long would you say it takes a person off the street with minimal foundry experience and a little common sense to get to a productive level in a foundry like yours? Is it a young person's game or could it be a second career for someone with other life experience?
Good Morning, If you can get into a smaller jobbing shop and get molders training, 5 years. That is to be proficient enough to go anywhere in the shop. You should be able to understand the processes, The whys and so forth. Get into a big shop and you will be stuck at one job, no cross training. You could build the furnace, keep the sand sweet, should be able to mold anything. There is such a high demand for jobbing shops you can get rich. Its tricky because the really choice work is sucked up by the good old boys. I grew up in this so I made it a point to know the movers and shakers as I was moving through the foundry world. It took 2 years before I got my first job out of an electrical company...and that was a dog. I just deleted a couple of paragraphs, I could ramble for hours... Young man work when starting...
I spoke to you several years ago Ben about casting some intake manifolds for me. I have some more projects on my drawing board I'd like to talk with you about. I'll be in touch...Glad to see you here!
