In the spirit of collaboration, Sheffield Forgemasters’ Foundry team has undertaken exchange visits with a Foundry in the Midlands.
Earlier this year, delegates from Newby Foundry in the West Midlands visited the Brightside Lane Foundry to look at casting processes for ultra-large castings, and the Sheffield Forgemasters Foundry team visited Newby’s facilities to see manufacture of smaller-scale, bulk castings.
The reciprocal visits helped teams from both foundries to compare very different techniques and to see if there are any technologies or processes which could be transferred or learned from.
Paul Ashcroft, Operation Lead – Foundry, said: “The initiative to host exchange visits with Newby Foundry was a great way to see the different processes that can be adopted for the manufacture of castings in vastly different sizes.
“We took a team to Birmingham including apprentices, shop floor and technical staff, to look at how they manufacture thousands of repeat, smaller castings, compared to low-repeat work at Sheffield Forgemasters.
“It was interesting to see some of the new technologies adopted at Newby, such as core shooters, 3D sand printing, automated fettling, co-ordinated measuring machines and moulding track systems, which aren’t yet available for the scale of work that we do.”
Newby Foundries specialise in smaller-scale iron and steel sand casting, rapid prototyping and investment casting at much higher production rates than Sheffield Forgemasters, which specialises in large, bespoke castings up to 350+ tonnes in weight.
Mark Duncombe, Metallurgist at Newby Foundries, said: “The difference in scale between Sheffield Forgemasters and Newby Foundries manufacturing is vast, and it was great for us to see how that scale of casting is managed.
“All of our team have worked with parts that can probably reach 40/50kg each and for us, that would be classed as a ‘big job’. We were all in awe at the sheer size of the parts Sheffield Forgemasters produces.“
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