Iron 101 at Lawton
Did you ever wonder what really goes on inside a foundry? How is iron formed? How is a casting made?
Well, Lawton Standard engineers are helping our customers learn what we do and how we do it with the Iron 101 class. The class can help streamline future casting projects your company has and potentially save time and money in the future.
This week, we had a group at C.A. Lawton in De Pere, learning the ins and outs of how we design and pour our iron castings.
What is Iron 101 all about?
Project Manager Brandon Leatherberry led the session with help from casting engineer Lauren Innis, foundry engineer Jeff Taylor and pattern maker Tim Wenninger.
Iron 101 is an introductory foundry course. It’s not overly technical and focuses on the basics of the iron casting process. This program isn’t only geared to engineers and designers, so anyone in your company who deals with castings can benefit from it.
This recent class went through the process of creating high-quality castings. The course started with design and continued through pattern making, ramming, molding, forming, pouring and finally cleaning and shipping.
Classes spend time on topics like design and processing. Those topics also include subsections on things like material testing, material specifications, casting, evaluation and pattern making. They also learned about the part geometries and part tolerances our engineers and designers take into consideration when creating the proper casting.
Iron 101 includes tours of production and facilities
In addition to the classroom presentation, attendees were able to take a tour of the pattern shop and got an up-close view of some of the tools our engineers use to test casting quality and make-up.
Participants also had a chance to tour the foundry floor to view first-hand our molding operations, our melt deck operations and how we pour our high-quality castings.
Iron 101 classes also offer a look at our machine shop operations and how we can finish and detail our iron castings.
Each participant receives a certificate of completion when the class concludes. Most Iron 101 classes run around seven hours long, so it’s an all-day affair.
Availability of Iron 101, Casting 101 and Steel 101
Having some basic knowledge of the casting process can have huge benefits for a company. It helps speed up the design process, can reduce the overall cost and potentially eliminate the number of parts needed. The class can also help create more accurate project plans in the future, as well as timelines.
Lawton Standard plans to host more of these Iron 101 classes at various locations within our family of companies. Currently, C.A. Lawton in De Pere, WI and Renaissance Manufacturing Group (RMG) in Anniston, AL offer Iron 101 or Casting 101 classes.
Our steel foundry, Temperform in Novi, MI, also offers a Steel 101 class.
If your company is interested in seeing how we make your castings, please reach out to us to set up an Iron 101, Casting 101 or Steel 101 class.
