Dura-Bar is the world's largest producer and the only manufacturer in North America of continuous cast iron bar stock offering rounds, rectangles/squares, tubes an shapes in a large selection of sizes and grades.  Continuously cast iron bars offer outstanding machinability advantages over carbon and alloy steels and can significantly decrease the cost to manufacture machined parts in a wide variety of applications and industries.

The key to Dura-Bar's unique properties comes from the Continuous Casting Process.  A water-cooled graphite die that is machined to form the shape of the bar is mounted at the bottom of a bar machine crucible.  Molten iron enters the die and a solid skin begins to form that takes the shape of a bar.  When the bar exits the die, it consists of a solid shell surrounding a molten metal core.  

As the bar is cast horizontally along the barline, iron is constantly fed into the die under the ferrostatic head pressure of the metal in the bar machine crucible.  Molten iron is delivered to the bar machine at precise temperatures in regular intervals.  Impurities that could form inclusions remain at the top of the molten metal bath, well away from the opening of the die.

Dura-Bar's most notable characteristic is its extremely dense, fine grained microstructure that allows excellent surface finishes after machining and parts are free from dross, slag and other tool wearing inclusions.  Common casting defects such as porosity and shrink are virtually eliminated by the process of continuous casting.