Our shop switched from sand to ceramic foam filters for our aluminum pours about six months ago.

We were getting a lot of scrap from inclusions, maybe 15% on some jobs. The boss brought in these new filters after a trade show. The first month was rough, learning the right preheat time, but by month three our scrap rate dropped to under 5%. The metal flow is just cleaner and more even. Anyone else made a big change to their gating system that paid off like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

garcia.cameron10d ago

Man that's awesome to hear. We swapped to ceramic foam filters for our ductile iron a couple years back and it was the same story. The learning curve on preheat was real but once we got it dialed in the difference was night and day. Our casting quality went way up and rework just fell off a cliff. Best process change we ever made.

kevinallen10d ago

How long did it take you guys to nail down the preheat?

the_riley10d ago

@garcia.cameron is right, the real trick is managing the heat soak.