New casting impregnation company formed

Midland Impregnations at the same site in Lye Valley Industrial Estate, Bromley Street, was formed to provide a specialist casting impregnation service to foundries and casting machine shops, mainly across the Midlands region.

A further £50,000 will be invested in the near future to increase impregnation capacity and other associated processes.

MIL director Chris Arrowsmith said: “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 £20,000 was invested in a specialised oven to dehydrate castings prior to impregnation.

"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," explained Mr Arrowsmith.

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 components in both the “as cast” and machined condition and is suitable for impregnating ferrous and non-ferrous castings.

It uses internationally approved sealants with high levels of sealing performance and cleanliness.

Processes are designed to avoid component damage and sealant contamination in blind holes.

“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," said Mr Arrowsmith.