Bremen Castings, Inc.

Bremen Castings, Inc., (BCI), a medium-sized gray and ductile iron foundry, was founded in 1939 as Bremen Gray Iron Foundry by Ellis Brown, Harold Heckamen and Charles W. King. Today, the Brown family has controlling interest in the foundry.

The foundry produces gray cast iron classes 20-40 and ductile iron grades 60-40-18, 65-45-12 and 80-55-06. The casting sizes range from 0.5 to 125 pounds with annual shipments of 13,000 tons serving the motor vehicles, valves and pipe fittings, farm machinery, engines, pumps, and lawn and garden equipment industries.

Beginning the casting process in the molding department, the foundry utilizes green sand molding equipment with five 14x19 Hunter Automatics, one 20x24 Hunter Automatic and one 20x26 Roberts Sinto Automatic.

Cores for the molds are produced on two Redford 22 Isocure Core Machines, one Redford 42 Shell Core Machine, four Redford 43 Shell Core Machines and two Dependable 200 Shell Core Machines.

Melting for ductile is done using two 4 ton Ajax Coreless Furnaces. The foundry takes advantage of off-peak melting and produces 25-30 tons per day of molten metal between the hours of 3:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. For gray iron production the foundry uses a 12-ton per hour, 60" diameter WRIB/Whiting with a wet scrubber. This metal at a rate of 100 to 140 tons per day is transferred to a 40 ton Inductotherm Duplex-Holder. The normal melt schedule for the cupola is four days a week and ten hours per day.

Pouring is done on conveyor lines with fume hoods to maintain a clean atmosphere in the foundry.

After sufficient cooling time the molds containing the castings are transferred to a Didion MD100 Rotary Media Drum. Hooded vibratory conveyers then deliver the castings to the cleaning room where they can be passed through one of three 14 cubic foot Super Tumblast Wheelabrators.

Quality control is accomplished using a variety of testing equipment including, spectrometer, micro examination, carbon analysis and ultrasound.

BCI offers machining service in house using one Mazak HTC-400 Horizontal Machining Center and one Mazak VTC-20B Vertical Machining Center. Also available is on Wesel Knee Mill LC-1850vs. This equipment provides a full range of capabilities.

For more information on quality castings from BCI
call Lon Kipfer at 219-546-2411, ext. 219.

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