The owners of Stourbridge based metal finishing specialists Midland Deburr & Finish have invested £300k to open a new company, Midland Impregnations Limited (MIL). It will to provide a specialist casting impregnation service to foundries and casting machine shops predominantly across the Midlands region.
MIL will shortly add a further £50k investment to impregnation capacity and other associated processes.
MIL director Chris Arrowsmith explains: “When you make a casting, you can get micro or macro porosity. This will cause the casting to leak and potentially fail in operation. A lot of companies will pressure test their castings and if they leak, they can be sent out for impregnation. Essentially what we are doing is sealing the porosity within the castings. Some companies like to send a large quantity out to be impregnated, others prefer to pressure test and send us the ‘leakers’. Within the automotive component industry in particular, we felt that there was a gap in the market for the specialised impregnation of castings.”
Along with co-director Paul Young, Chris Arrowsmith identified an opportunity to improve the impregnation process. Around £20k was invested in a specialised oven to dehydrate castings prior to impregnation.
Mr Arrowsmith adds: “The dehydration is necessary to remove contamination including machining fluids from within porosity in preparation for effective impregnation. We also have a solvent degreasing facility utilising ultrasonics to remove oil or other contaminations from within porosity if required. We have combined experience in this field of over 35 years and wanted to add this engineering expertise to our process.”
Vacuum and pressure impregnation is carried out through high capacity equipment that can process both small and large castings in both the as-cast and machined condition. The inclusion of high performance rotational spray/flood washing ensures high standards of cleanliness on complex finish machined castings during the impregnation process.
The largest basket can accommodate loads up to a tonne in weight and the process can handle ferrous and non-ferrous components in both the ‘as cast’ and machined conditions.
MIL uses internationally approved sealants with high levels of sealing performance and cleanliness and processes are designed to avoid component damage and sealant contamination in blind holes.
It offers a fast turnaround service within 24 hours and transport, delivery and collections are available.
Mr Arrowsmith concludes: “Our target market is casting companies and companies that machine castings. We have seen high levels of demand since the launch of MIL, ranging from requests for large volume work down to one-offs.
Midland Impregnations and Midland Deburr and Finish are both approved to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.
www.midlandimpregnations.co.uk
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