CAST-IT Success Story
The Problem
The F-5 adversary aircraft provides Active and Reserve Navy pilots with air-to-air combat training at significant savings to the taxpayer. Recent estimates show that the F-5 can be operated at one third of what it costs to operate an F/A-18. The problems involved in producing this component included an inefficiently designed casting and a foundry producibility problem, resulting in a DLA Backorder situation. The foundry had previously attempted approximately six different variations of gating design to eliminate a shrinkage area in order to meet the x-ray requirements. CAST-IT’s™ ability to build a collaborative approach to present a design modification to address the gating requirements proved to be a win-win for all supply chain members.
“The new foundry tried several times to make good castings with no success. I got a call from American Metalcasting Consortium and they told me that they work for the Government …AMC and the new foundry solved the problems with the castings and got them to pass x-ray. The castings are now being machined. The problem area for porosity has been machined and there have been no defects or rejections.”
John Stallbaumer
Triumph Accessory Services
The Solution
The CAST-IT™ team suggested a few simple design changes that would not effect form, fit or function of the part, but would make it a much more casting-friendly design. The CAST-IT™ team also recommended a modification to the gating design, which helped achieve the required directional solidification of the metal to make a sound casting. Implementation of the proposed drawing changes were hand fabricated onto a wax part from the current tooling, gating was modified by the foundry and a sample casting produced. The new design resolved the problem achieving successful x-ray and penetrant results. Once the change approval was received, the hard tooling was modified, and wax patterns were shot, and a fully processed first article casting was produced. Production castings have now been successfully machined for final delivery.