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Old timer at the Tacoma plant told me my pouring angle was too steep

He said I was losing about 5% of my metal to splash and slag because I was pouring too fast from too high up. I switched to a slower, lower pour and my scrap rate dropped the next week. Do you think a steeper pour is ever worth the speed, or is it always a waste?
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3 Comments
anderson.sandra
Read an article about a steel mill that tracked this. They found a steep pour only made sense for one specific, thin-walled casting. Even then, they used a special nozzle. For almost everything else, a controlled pour saved more money than it cost in time.
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hunt.kevin
hunt.kevin21d ago
Buddy of mine worked at a foundry. They had this rush order, needed parts out the door yesterday. Foreman told everyone to pour fast, steep angle, ignore the splash. They did. Got the order done on time. But then spent the next two days grinding off extra slag and fixing voids. Said it was a total wash time-wise, just made more work. Sometimes speed costs you more than it saves.
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black.shane
Yeah, that old timer was right on the money. A steep pour is almost never worth it (outside of a true, pants-on-fire emergency). You might save ten minutes on the pour, but you'll lose hours later on grinding and rework, not to mention the wasted metal. It's a shortcut that just makes the whole job longer.
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