In 1962, Picañol began with the study regarding a new foundry. This showed that it would be interesting to design and build its own foundry, which was certainly a bold initiative. The choice was made to work with the most modern form of technology: the high-pressure principle. At the time, the mechanization and automation in the molding were, just like this technique, still in their infancy. With this new principle, the focus was mainly on the quality of the sand, the accuracy of the dimensions, and surface conditions. At the end of 1964, a specialized company from Ghent placed two new overhead cranes, with a combined weight of approximately 30 tons. They would be used for loading and unloading trucks, and to supply the melting-furnaces. On 17 February 1966, the first machine of the new foundry was put into service. The 'Ballard' was an automatic painting machine with an immersion system and drying oven. It worked five times faster than the machine in the old foundry. This meant that 35 looms were painted per 9-hour shift. In November 1966, over 20% of the cast iron production was realized in the new foundry. The new 'Taccone' molding machine had a capacity of a full cast in 15 seconds or 4 casts per minutes. The four cupolas allowed for the casting of 150 tons of iron in 9 hours. To mold the larger pieces, the ‘Sandslinger’ was used, in which the molding boxes were filled by two casting pots with a combined capacity of 1 ton.
No comments:
Post a Comment