AFS Corporate Member Waupaca Foundry has expanded production capabilities at Plant 1 located in Waupaca, Wisconsin, adding horizontal molding to existing vertical molding capabilities. Installation on the new line began in February. To mark its new capabilities, the foundry held a “first pour” event on April 18.

“We are making this investment as a direct response to customer demand,” said Waupaca Foundry President, COO, and CEO Mike Nikolai. “We have made strategic capital investments in key areas of production including the use of material handling automation; now we are adapting to customer needs by offering both horizontal and vertical molding.”

The production expansion directly addresses customer concerns about tooling costs for low volume, complicated parts that were previously produced using the vertical molding process.

“Waupaca Foundry has a strong reputation for high-volume production,” said James Newsome, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing. “By adding horizontal molding, our customers have a solution for value-added services to produce low-volume, complicated parts.” 

The plant installed a Sinto Horizontal Molding Machine within its existing footprint, the first in operation in the U.S. Features include:
•    High-speed production with a mold rate of 200 molds/hour.
•    Quick pattern changes of 18 seconds within cycle time.
•    Excellent mold strength and accuracy.
•    Automatic core setting.
•    Laser-guided automatic pouring.

The Sinto Horizontal Molding Machine is paired with an ExOne S-Max Pro 3D core printer that allows production of complex core assemblies as a single piece core and creates the ability to produce rapid prototype castings. The new process allows Waupaca Foundry to adapt existing matchplate tooling of equal or smaller size quickly in order to respond to customers’ tight deadlines.