If you aren’t expected or know where you’re going when you pull into the parking lot at AFS Corporate Member Silver Dollar Castings (SDC), you might begin to doubt if you’re in the right place. A plain, small brick factory sits humbly at the dead-end of a street that’s more like a long driveway. You’ve arrived inside a manufacturing district in the “Lower West End” neighborhood of Chicago that’s safe by day but dicey by night, hence the bars on doors and windows. 

Could this unprepossessing site be a well-respected aluminum nobake foundry that produces high-quality, complex parts for DoD, microchip, aerospace, automotive, mining,  construction/agriculture, and other demanding industries? As if in disguise, SDC is a Clark Kent of foundries, where, inside, a tiny but mighty team of talented metalcasters is turning out a wide range of castings in low- to mid-size volumes, with weights from under 1 lb.–375 lbs. 
Its location is actually a blessing that’s also in disguise. Their central, Midwest geography gives the foundry access to many different customers from Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and beyond, according to Southsider Jill Clement, SDC’s hands-on owner who is the heart and soul of the business today. She says her company has great access to numerous shipping and rail routes, and their proximity to public transportation is important for employees who don’t own vehicles. And because it’s positioned within a manufacturing zone, the foundry has no residential neighbors to worry about.

More Than You’d Expect

SDC’s nobake process enables the company to achieve rigorous surface-finish standards, and because they’re an air-set foundry, they are able to produce extremely thin walls and tight tolerances with their rock-hard molds. 
A variety of aluminum alloys is available, and every casting made here is air set––three-part pep set, chemical-based, cope and drag molding. They hand-pour and tilt pour and provide in-house heat treat as a value-add service. Once customers experience what the company is capable of, they invariably return with larger and even more challenging programs, according to Clement. 

“Originally, we were strictly running prototype work, but prototyping can be a very feast-or-famine type of cycle,” she said. “Eventually, I decided we needed to expand, and we were looking for low-lot production jobs, maybe 500–2,000 pieces a year just to fill in some of the gaps during our lulls. One thing led to another, and our customers were so satisfied with what we were providing, they kept coming back for more.”

Healthy Backlog

Repeat business and word of mouth indeed play a big role in the business backlog for the foundry that does little to no marketing or advertising. SDC also maintains close contact with three nearby foundries, and the four companies routinely refer work to one another.

But the No. 1 funnel responsible for their impressive and long clientele list is the foundry’s valuable ISO 9001-2015 partner––a well-known, tier-one manufacturer and product-development specialist. 

“Because of their contacts, we have access to a lot of very big-name companies,” said Clement. “To respect our clients’ confidentiality I can’t share names, but we are really making magnificent parts; very thin-walled castings like fans, shrouds, transmission housings––very difficult castings that are complicated and require a lot of cores. 

“A lot of times in a production foundry, they want to run jobs that are a little bit more basic and less complicated in terms of setting multiple cores and with higher volume of parts, because they want to keep their efficiencies,” she continued. “We are more focused on extremely high quality, and while I of course look for efficiencies, I want to make sure we’re giving our customers what they are looking for and not throwing parts away. We really put a lot of effort into engineering and design so we can give our best to every part going out the door.”

The working relationship with its tier-one partner is mutually advantageous. SDC receives a flow of continuous projects and programs but also sends value-add work upstream to the larger entity. While the foundry provides heat treat, grinding, and Rockwell testing services in-house, SDC can coordinate with its partner organization to handle additional services, such as full PPAP certification, machining, other types of testing, anodizing, painting, and more.

“We become a one-stop shop for our customers, which is a strong value in today’s busy world,” Clement said.
Heavy on Hustle

Clement leverages SDC’s nimble size as an advantage in the marketplace of metalcasting choices. For Clement and her sister, Lisa Clement, who joined the company in 2021, the name of the game is hustle. 

“One thing that really sets us apart is our ability to pivot quickly because we’re a small facility,” she said. “For example, I always make a commitment into problems, I’m very upfront and honest with them––I’ll take pictures and say ‘here’s what I’ve got, and this is what I’m going to do to try to fix it.’ Of course, engineers are going to be engineers. They’re very black and white. Sometimes what they want on paper doesn’t reflect what can be achieved in real-world applications on the shop floor. When that happens, I will tell them I will try to get them to that finish line, but we need a variance––‘where are you willing to compromise?’ 

“I’m not afraid to push back. And they can push back on me, also. When they do, sometimes that gives us the extra nudge to think outside the box and expand what our capabilities might be. This has caused us to grow and be able to take on extremely complicated projects.”

Wowing the Customer

One such complicated job wound up at SDC’s door after an aerospace customer had struggled with an offshoring arrangement. The job had been sitting at a casting supplier in India for a year with not a single casting to show for it. 

Clement would soon learn it wouldn’t be easy for SDC, either. The part called for extremely thin walls––about 80 thousandths, she recalls. It also required a specific aerospace alloy with strict melting temperature limits to retain its chemical properties. Clement says she didn’t know if they would succeed, but she promised to give it her very best. She also told the customer she’d be working with her tier-one partner, which is also a prototyping toolmaker that specializes in product design. 

“So, the job came in, and we round-tabled it for a couple weeks,” she said. “We made the design, we got everything approved from the end user, and we started making castings. With the first 15, we failed miserably, but I was like, ‘Great, we failed––but I’m ok with that,’ because with each fail we were making progress and improving. Finally, I had a brand-new idea how to retool it, gate it, and pour it. Everyone said it would never work, but I said, ‘Ok, but can I try it anyways?’ Well, it completely fixed the problem. 

“In total, it took us about six weeks to start producing the castings,” she continued. “The customer was floored. They said, ‘Do you understand that we fought with this other foundry for a year, and they were never able to make it work?’ And I’m like, ‘Welcome to reshoring!’”

Technical Breakthrough

It’s not uncommon for any foundry to hit a wall once in a while, no matter the casting process, and when it happens, the deep technical expertise combined with the friendliness found throughout the AFS metalcasting community are ready to come to the rescue. Luckily, Clement had just joined AFS in 2023 when a particularly solution-defying problem surfaced at SDC. 

The challenge was with a DoD job, another aerospace project involving chaplets and core holes to support cores throughout the casting. Numerous passageways made it difficult to keep cores from floating and keeping the passages intact where they needed to be––then SDC would weld the holes closed to make an airtight, leak-proof seal for the high-pressure casting. The problem was that they repeatedly encountered a failed weld fusion. Clement and her certified welder were stumped.

The turning point came when Clement attended her first AFS Metalcasting Congress in April 2024. Thumbing through the session descriptions, Clement was stunned to see the listing for David Weiss’s presentation on “The Development of Improved Repair Welding Alloy and Process for Aluminum, Copper Sand Castings.” Formerly the vice president of engineering and R&D at AFS Corporate Member Eck Industries, Weiss is now the founder of Vision Materials, a metalcasting consultancy. 

His program would prove to be a lightbulb event.

“I was literally on the edge of my seat the whole session, constantly writing and writing and filled with excitement,” she said. “I had a new game plan. I learned we were doing the absolute opposite of what David had discovered should be done to overcome this issue. Once we made the change, the castings met the customer’s requirements. They asked, ‘What changed?’ I said, my angel, David, solved this problem, and that process has now completely changed how we’re welding all of the castings.”

Soon after that win, SDC bumped into another, equally vexing challenge with chaplets in a different aerospace alloy. Clement brought the problem to Weiss, who hadn’t experienced that issue before. He spent a week researching and talking to other engineers and again provided Clement with the solution she needed. 

“It all started because I went to that show and sat in that session,” Clement said. “And he was so kind to speak with me and then email back and forth with me. He was pivotal in helping us knock it out of the park and get those parts done.”

Today, Clement says her favorite benefit of her AFS membership is the helpful technical sharing and collaboration she finds in the association’s Online Forum. 

“I love the fact that you can communicate with other AFS members about your actual daily grind, and you can be very open. Nobody’s judging you, and everybody is so quick to provide thoughts and feedback. It’s incredibly supportive. 

Bright Outlook, One Cloud

Clement is bullish on 2025 and, based on purchase orders already rolling in, says it’s going to be a good year.
“We see a lot of customers who are coming back, and the volumes are increasing order after order; the frequency of those orders is also increasing,” she said Clement believes the new administration coupled with a Republican senate and house will mean increases in military spending, and she’s positive about the outlook for all manufacturing sectors, as well.

“I really feel that the onshoring of work is going to be tremendous,” she said. “Once you start looking at the growth of the reshoring, you’re going to be looking at the building of facilities and the training of people to support it. Over the next three to five years, I think there will be growth for every industry.”

The only obstacle in SDC’s path today is the nearly-universal challenge plaguing most North American foundries: the labor shortage. In a continuous state of hiring for job vacancies, SDC struggles to get people willing to work hard in less-than-idyllic conditions––due to the plant’s high ceiling and high cost of utilities in Chicago, the shop floor is neither heated in winter nor air conditioned in summer. 

Disappointed but not surprised, Clement has had new hires disappear––never to return––on their first day during the morning or lunch break. So, she’s adopted a new approach: Clement says she does “on-the-job interviews,” literally taking candidates out to the floor and showing them the physical demands of the job so there’s no misunderstanding or misaligned expectations. 

She also says she doesn’t necessarily look for casting experience, preferring instead to hire based on character and work ethic. She said she would rather train a new hire on SDC’s processes rather than having new employees come into the job ingrained with another foundry’s routines. Because they’re a small organization, every employee is cross-trained to do every job in the foundry. Clement is no exception to her rule––she is on the plant floor every day, performing any and every task that’s needed. 

Clement said she’s very proud of the team she has, some with 15 and 20 years of tenure. She’s generous with praise and quick to reward the staff with catered meals and champagne when they’ve gone the extra mile, which happens often. She’s also liberal with compassion when life collides with work.

“I’m a very realistic boss,” she said. “I know what it’s like if you have a kid that’s sick or if the school calls and your kid’s in trouble. We’re very family-oriented here. Life happens. I’m not going to punish you or dock you because you’re five, 10, or even 30 minutes late. Just get in and get to work. I don’t sweat the small stuff. Go pick up your kid, figure it out, and we’ll see you when you come back. And if you’re sick, please, stay home. I’m happy to pay you to not walk through my door, because we all just fall like dominoes.”

Getting through the winter without companywide illness can be tough. But Clement is quite optimistic about the health of SDC. She and sister Lisa, a former paramedic, seem to have found the right prescription for ongoing business strength.