Lawton and Penn-Mar team up to teach Iron 101

In March, employees of The C.A. Lawton Co. and Penn-Mar Castings teamed up to teach an Iron 101 class. This joint session was the first time employees from the De Pere, WI and Hanover, PA sites collaborated to share their knowledge on metalcasting and foundries. The main focus of the Iron 101 was to showcase the different capabilities of two foundries on the same platform. 

The Iron 101 class consists of walking through the steps and process of creating castings. Iron 101 participants learn about the material properties of gray and ductile iron, how these materials are tested, and the basics of thermal testing. Using a physical model, the instructor showed how the cope, drag, and cores fit together like an intricate jigsaw puzzle to form a complete mold that shapes molten metal into a finished part.

Those who attended the session also learned about part geometry, castability, and solidification modeling. The latter is a 3D technology that is used to simulate how molten metal flows into a mold design, and where and how it cools. It enables a casting engineer to optimize the mold design to minimize defects and voids in the finished piece. It also ensures that the part quality is consistently high from one piece to the next.

The response was overwhelmingly positive and well received from those attending.
In particular, one response stated they originally thought casting was more of an art than a science, but after the session, they did not believe that to be true. Others stated the metalcasting process was more complicated than they had initially thought. Customers also thought the session was informative of not only Lawton, but the foundry industry in general.

Lawton and Penn-Mar employees were able to educate customers on the foundry processes at their location while respecting social distancing precautions. The C.A. Lawton Co. plans to host live versions at various Lawton facilities this year. If interested, please contact Remarkable@calawton.com