In August, AFS Corporate Member Decatur Foundry Inc. (DFI) in Decatur, Illinois, will go live with its new molding building, which replaces a molding facility lost to fire in May 2019. Most of the job shop’s molding is floor molding, and formerly, coremakers shared mixers with the molders, said CEO Rex Ragsdale. In the redesigned space, which, at 16,640 sq. ft., is 14 ft. wider than its predecessor, the east side of the building is dedicated to floor molding, offering increased capacity with 10-ton hoists in both bays. The west side of the building features a small molding line with a new 48-in. automated conveyor. 

At the north end, DFI increased its efficiency with a dedicated coremaking machine.

Additional floor molding areas have been added at the center of the building, as well as a Tinker Omega mold drying oven. DFI has installed three Tinker Omega mixers—two TOM-550s and a TOM-350. 

“At the flip of a switch, the TOM-550 goes from 400 to 700 or 1,100 lbs. of sand, depending on the size of the mold,” said Ragsdale. “So, it helps us greatly. Whether you’re running smaller molds or bigger, you don’t have to stop and recalibrate—it does it for you.”

The $4.5 million upgrade accounts for over 60% of DFI’s molding capacity; the balance is provided by its other onsite molding buildings. The destroyed building provided 42% of all capacity.