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Press Releases & Editorials

GRAPHALLOY® Bearings Take a Stand Against Heat and Sand

Installing GRAPHALLOY bearings has saved this Indiana foundry hundreds of maintenance hours annually

Specialising in ferrous and non-ferrous shell moulded castings, the foundry had a bearing problem. The high heat and sand in their moulding machines were destroying their brass bushings and stopping their production. GRAPHALLOY provided a solution for this difficult problem.

During production a casting pattern is mounted to the bottom plate of the machine. Sand is added to the plate. The plate was then rolled back to the centre position and the oven lowered over the mould to bake the pattern. The bushings in the arms lowering the oven were exposed to 260°C as well as grit and sand.

As a result of these harsh operating conditions, the brass bushings lowering the oven over the mould were only lasting 2-4 weeks. Replacing these bushings required two men – working for nearly two hours – to make the repair.

Graphite Metallizing was contacted. A recommendation was made to replace the brass bushings in the arms that raise and lower the oven with Graphalloy Grade 212 High Temperature Bushings.

After the GRAPHALLOY bushings had been in use for 14 months there was less then 0.1mm wear. The customer was so pleased with the performance of the Graphalloy bushings that they ordered bushings for all 13 of their moulding machines. One of the maintenance repairmen estimated that he was personally saving 30 hours a month.

Once again, GRAPHALLOY proved to be the answer for difficult, high temperature applications. Graphalloy is a registered trademark of Graphite Metallizing Corp.

Further Information
For more infomation please contact Tony Snowdon at FTL Technology on 0113 252 1061 or e-mail tonys@ftltech.co.uk