Another one bites the dust.

http://www.maynards.com/media/components/ams/events/AAKRR101503/Foundry_Auction_(Brochure).pdf

Anyone know what finished these guys off?

Rivett said:

http://www.maynards.com/media/components/ams/events/AAKRR101503/Foundry_Auction_(Brochure).pdf

Anyone know what finished these guys off?

Click to expand...

I'll take a wild guess - competition?

Asian countries continue to make inroads in what was once regarded as "western dominated industries". The new and prosperous Asian countries are in turn losing slowly to the less prosperous Asian countries and maybe even to South American countries.

The only thing I can think of lasting for a very long time yet is what is known as "the oldest profession in the world". Not something I'd want to invest in though.

Once upon a time, and in fact not too long ago, two of our major industries were shipbuilding and textiles. They've, thankfully, been replaced by new innovations. Life does go on.

Fab shops/processing eliminated most large castings except for niche areas like pump housings.
EPA makes it cost ineffective to compete with 3rd world countries for production castings that can be shipped in containers. Economic competition including wages and regulatory costs killed the somewhat labor intensive stuff in the middle (machine tool castings, e.g.).

USA still has a ton of foundries. But not many that welcome the stuff you used to be able to have done on the side at one of a half dozen in your local area.

smt

stephen thomas said:

Fab shops/processing eliminated most large castings except for niche areas like pump housings.
EPA makes it cost ineffective to compete with 3rd world countries for production castings that can be shipped in containers. Economic competition including wages and regulatory costs killed the somewhat labor intensive stuff in the middle (machine tool castings, e.g.).

USA still has a ton of foundries. But not many that welcome the stuff you used to be able to have done on the side at one of a half dozen in your local area.

smt

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A ton of foundries? Only took 2 weeks to find one that would pour 20 motorcycle triple trees in aluminum. The one being actioned used to give one employee per month a new pickup truck!

moonlight machine said:

A ton of foundries? Only took 2 weeks to find one that would pour 20 motorcycle triple trees in aluminum. The one being actioned used to give one employee per month a new pickup truck!

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Possibly not a "ton", but they are out there in quantity. It is simply more difficult to find one willing to deal with quantities less than thousands ( or hundreds of thousands ), much less a multitude of materials, anymore. There are 5 I can name right off the top of my head in my area. My local area. But not one will talk to me about anything less than large numbers. I had to go across the country to have 5 Cast Iron castings made for prototyping purposes.

I heard from a guy at Kurt that the USA lost half of its iron foundry capability in the great recession. We probably won't get it back.

From what I could find, the facility closed in June of 2014 and they had been trying to lease it out since then. I suspect they pulled what was economical to move to some of their other facilities and this is what's left.

Well...
In europe, we have much more effective environmental controls than your epa.
In europe, we don´t have companies able to escape the retirement benefits they paid for, since this is paid to the government as you go.
And yet, casting as a business is alive and well, in general.

Most US mfct businesses who failed did so like GM and the other auto majors apart from Ford.
Hubris, incompetence, belief in political pork vs quality products and services.

Pretty much the same happened here in Spain.
Hubris, incompetence, and out of 64 machine tool builders 21 survive 20 years later.

Many or most us major corps failed to invest in the business, preferring to play stock market games.
GE (ge finance ?!) is one example.

Others invested, thrive, pay workers very well, make record profits.
Boeing is one great example.

Precision castparts is another, smaller one.

stephen thomas said:

Fab shops/processing eliminated most large castings except for niche areas like pump housings.
EPA makes it cost ineffective to compete with 3rd world countries for production castings that can be shipped in containers. Economic competition including wages and regulatory costs killed the somewhat labor intensive stuff in the middle (machine tool castings, e.g.).

smt

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We used to purchase castings from a relatively small foundry in our state. The last batch they quoted for us was so ridiculously overpriced we decided to start making them from solid stock. Why they decided to triple the cost to us, I cant say.

Boeing doesn't make everything it used too. The result is they have cut there workforce also. Alot is outsourced even to other countries. Some of it is political to get sales to other countries.

Yes, and no.

1.
Part of boeing is aerospace and defence.
Only us stuff accepted, by law.

2.
Rest..
Well, excellent.
More workers in other countries, learning, getting contracts.
Boeing workforce has been growing with record orders.
Boeing pay has been growing with record pay to workers.
Boeing stock and dividends do well.
Perfect.

That IS the essence of a capitalist company, with a modicum of sense.

You SPREAD your work, contracts, workers, subs, around and pay everyone well, making it important for everyone else to ensure YOUR success.

And do it while (very) profitable, and thus reward Your stockholders, allowing You to finance Your activities on a long term or mid term basis.
Well done for boeing.

Sometimes, often, the best choice is an expensive, excellent, highly motivated workforce who really, really, really, want to make sure the company succeeds.
Boeing is a great example.
(Tesla, SpaceX, are 2 others.)
(Facebook (I dont like the company but do like the financials), google, etc).

winger said:

Boeing doesn't make everything it used too. The result is they have cut there workforce also. Alot is outsourced even to other countries. Some of it is political to get sales to other countries.

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50% of Boeing is defense.
Half their income.

Where I live there are a lot of smaller shops who subcontract to Boeing, and Airbus.
2 of my ex employees are currently working at a shop a few miles away that does Boeing work.

I think a lot of foundries in the USA have closed down due to tighter environmental laws, and due to cheap offshore competition.
I used to have parts cast in Gray Iron at a foundry in South Central LA, that was still running coal fired furnaces and most of their equipment was from the fifties.
This was in the early 90s.
I am pretty sure they are gone now, although there are still a couple dozen foundries in the LA area.
but the ones that are still here have generally moved up market, to higher quality, more expensive castings for medical, aerospace, and higher tolerance, higher cost castings.

Its interesting that there are more Meehanite licensed foundries now in Taiwan than in the USA, and dozens in mainland China.
They, too, are trying for higher paying castings.
India is the big go to country today for dirt cheap cast iron- manhole covers, gratings, streetlights- its mostly coming out of India, which has cheaper labor and looser standards than China for foundries.

Another reason foundries are going out of business, is that fewer things are being designed around cast parts. In the 70's there was a big push to replace castings with weldments. So while companies like Case held on to cast booms for their backhoes, Caterpillar went with a weldment that was cheaper to make, more durable, and even a bit more functional. Later high strength steel stampings replaced some castings. There was a big push to get weight out of anything that moved or was expensive to ship -- cars, trucks, planes, appliances, even portable tools. Now there are structural plastics and composities.

So, fewer castings in car parts. Much of the aerospace/defense stuff is going with composites. The castings you used to see sitting as legs under lathes, as street lamps pole, or kitchen mixer bases are all pretty much gone. And so on. All replaced (usually) with better alternatives.

moonlight machine said:

A ton of foundries? Only took 2 weeks to find one that would pour 20 motorcycle triple trees in aluminum. The one being actioned used to give one employee per month a new pickup truck!

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Moonlight, everyone here already knows my experiences over maybe 25 years, with 4 foundries. One, Aluminum, in PA, is still in business going strong. 3 others in OH and PA sequentially went bust or quit, where I had my straight edge patterns cast. The last one lost both patterns.

However, i stand by my statement: Here are 150 left just in PA alone. did you check the associations in your state and surrounding?

Pennsylvania Foundry Association

smt

PeteM said:

Another reason foundries are going out of business, is that fewer things are being designed around cast parts. In the 70's there was a big push to replace castings with weldments. So while companies like Case held on to cast booms for their backhoes, Caterpillar went with a weldment that was cheaper to make, more durable, and even a bit more functional. Later high strength steel stampings replaced some castings. There was a big push to get weight out of anything that moved or was expensive to ship -- cars, trucks, planes, appliances, even portable tools. Now there are structural plastics and composities.

So, fewer castings in car parts. Much of the aerospace/defense stuff is going with composites. The castings you used to see sitting as legs under lathes, as street lamps pole, or kitchen mixer bases are all pretty much gone. And so on. All replaced (usually) with better alternatives.

Click to expand...

Very true. The Lincoln Foundation, established by the welding company of the same name to promote welding education, publishes a number of texts and references. And one of the underlying themes in many of them is to promote the use of weldments instead of castings.