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Finally got the hang of that tricky cope and drag setup on the old Disamatic | Foundry Workers - Librear

Finally got the hang of that tricky cope and drag setup on the old Disamatic

Three years ago when I started at the plant in South Bend, I could never get the flask alignment right on that machine and we'd get flash on every third casting. Last month, our lead guy showed me his trick of checking the guide pins with a feeler gauge before each run. I tried it my way for a week and cut our scrap rate on that line by almost fifteen percent. Anyone have a different method for keeping those old vertical lines running true?

4 comments

4 Comments

stellahayes5mo ago

That feeler gauge trick is a solid start for sure. Honestly though, checking pins before a run is just putting a bandage on the real problem. On our old line, we found the root cause was usually worn bushings letting the whole flask tilt during the close. We started a weekly check with a dial indicator on the moving platen. It takes ten minutes but you catch the slop before it makes bad parts. Fixing the worn parts is the only way to keep it true long term.

christopher675mo ago

Right on @stellahayes, we did the same thing!

elliot_allen654mo ago

We ended up making that a regular thing too after we got burned a couple times... catching it early with a dial indicator makes a huge difference. What really sealed it for us was keeping a log of those weekly checks so we could see the wear pattern building up. It's funny how a little slop you might not notice day to day adds up fast when you look at the numbers over a month. Saved us a ton of scrap on our line just by catching the bushings before they got too loose.

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smith.anna4mo ago

Wait, wouldn't a dial indicator on the moving platen tell you more about alignment than bushing wear specifically? lol. I always thought bushings let the flask tilt in a different direction, kinda side to side, not so much front to back where you'd see it on the platen. We found the best way to catch our bushings was just pulling the pins and feeling for slop by hand during the weekly check. It's not as precise as your method though, just a quick feel test before we fire things up.