The Eagle Group will be at Design2Part 2018 in Grapevine, TX, March 14-15. If you're in the area or interested in going, we can get you in the door for free!

The event will be the largest contract manufacturing trade show in the region, with over 300 categories of manufacturing services on display. Design2Part is the place to be if you want to:

• Find quality suppliers
• Discover new technologies
• Solve manufacturing problems

A major manufacturer of ventilation systems contacted Eagle Aluminum Cast Products, Inc. when demand was growing and they were ready to make a change.

The customer had already been producing 48” fan blades for agricultural use through green sand casting, but they’d outgrown that method. Demand projections suggested that permanent mold casting would yield lower per-part costs, with the added benefit of greater consistency.

Years later, EACP still produces fan blades for the customer through the process of permanent mold casting. Demand has increased even more, and product offerings have become more diverse. Read on to learn how EACP handles the design, production and delivery of this cast aluminum fan blade.

Originally posted in the American Foundry Society's Modern Casting Blog

Erik Deckers, a marketing speaker at this year’s Metalcasting Congress, has co-authored a book with Kyle Lacy, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself, third edition.

The book is a guide to the major social media platforms, and how you take charge of your brand on those platforms.

We need to listen to Deckers’ expertise. He knows how you can make these social media platforms work for you, and he can help you decide which ones will be the best for you. 

Investment casting, sometimes known as lost-wax casting, is a metal forming method known for its ability to produce parts with tight tolerances, complex inner cavities and accurate dimensions.

As we discussed in our Introduction to Investment Casting post, the basic technique has existed for millennia. Over the years, innovations in equipment and methodology have kept pace with demand. Today, investment casting is one of the most popular forms of metal casting.

Read on to learn more about the unique process of investment casting.

Lean Manufacturing principles encourage maximum efficiency for just about any production facility. Lean Manufacturing is also more of a necessity than ever, with cutthroat competition across the manufacturing industry forcing all players to up their efficiency levels.

If you're worried that your company isn't lean enough, take a look at these five tools from the Lean Manufacturing playbook.

Investment casting is nearly as old as metalcasting itself, with the earliest known examples dating back to 3,500 BC. Before investment casting was invented, metal castings were created using open stone or ceramic molds. Investment casting allowed for much greater detail and smoother finish, vastly expanding the possibilities of metal casting.

Today, investment casting is one of the most versatile methods of metal casting. The process, which is still similar to that used over 5,000 years ago, allows for tighter tolerances, more intricate shapes and smoother surface finishes than other metal casting methods.

Lean manufacturing helps manufacturers improve efficiency by eliminating waste in the production process, but what exactly is lean manufacturing? Is it a product, a procedure, a religion?

None of the above. Lean manufacturing is an adaptable set of “tools” that can be applied to any system of manufacturing–whether that system produces spring coils, jet engines or blog posts. It starts with identifying waste in a production process, and then focuses on eliminating that waste bit by bit until production is as streamlined and efficient as possible.

Modern manufacturing wouldn't be possible without rigorous standards of measurement, along with sophisticated tools and techniques to help us measure tools, workpieces and finished products.

CNC machining is a prime example of the practical uses of modern measuring, or metrology. In metal-based manufacturing, CNC machining is often the last process before a part is delivered. Without incredibly accurate and precise ways to measure and cut, many of the metal products we take for granted would be impossible to produce.

The history of measurement is the story of how human civilization strove to find new ways to measure accurately, and it all leads up to modern metrology.

In manufacturing, aluminum is rarely pure. Instead, manufacturers form alloys that dramatically increase aluminum’s strength and stiffness, while maintaining its other desirable properties. Both professionals and non-professionals often make comparisons between aluminum and steel, because the two metals are both used for such a wide variety of products.

But comparing aluminum to steel is a bit like comparing apples to oranges: steel is already an alloy, while aluminum is an element. Carbon steel, a basic steel alloy, is composed of iron (Fe) and carbon (C). Pure aluminum, despite its many winning properties, is too soft and not strong enough for most industrial applications. But aluminum alloys can be thirty times stronger than pure aluminum, and regularly exceed steel in strength-to-weight ratios.

Eagle Alloy, Inc. provided customers with its annual quality survey, and received excellent ratings for 2017.

On behalf of Eagle Alloy, we'd like to thank our customers for taking the time to fill out this survey, and we look forward to continued collaboration in 2018!