(R)evolution in the foundry

By the end of 1946, the management decided to rearrange the foundry, which still carried the reminders of the old Valcke foundry. The motto behind the reorganization was ‘towards progress through quality’. Shock machines installed in the new set-up enabled the formation of the sand under pressure and quick release of the molds after casting.
In March 1947, the company participated in a conference on foundry techniques that was held at the Fabrimetal premises in Brussels. The seminar allowed Picañol to demonstrate the possibility of producing cast iron with considerable resistance by mixing a large amount of steel into the load in the melting furnace. In April 1947, Picañol was the first company in Belgium to obtain two licenses for processing acicular, nickel-molybdenum alloyed cast iron with a high tensile strength and shock resistance, even at longer resistance periods. The process proved to be an immense improvement for the production of the ‘hammers’ and ‘barriers’ of the Omnium weaving machine. However, adding steel to the cast iron was not always without danger. In the years after WWII, steel was often recovered from remnants from the two great wars. The region around Ypres was littered with ammunition from those wars and an abundance of steel from grenades and shells could be found in the area. This could also result in unexploded mortar shells being detonated when they were thrown into the ‘cubilot’ (furnace), with the sparks of the hot, glowing metal flying all over the place.