At 12:00 AM 2/19/01 -0800, you wrote:
>Makes perfect sense that a foundry will stand behind a casting with a
>replacement now that you mention it. Just like any other business is
(usually)
>willing to stand behind their product.
>Trent
Trent,
Yes, they are a business selling a product and if there's a product
defect, like if a blowhole appears in the middle of a castings, they can't
very well pass the responsibility on to anyone else. I've only had one
foundry refuse to make a casting good. They were a specialized foundry
that cast furnace burners so they were doing this as a favor but after
three tries they couldn't get one without blowholes and they refused to
make another try. The curious thing was that they got a mating part
perfect the first time and it was a heavier, much more complex casting that
the top.
To bring some Ga1 relevance to this, in a search of the Thomas
Register a couple of years ago, looking for possible sources to have Ga1
driver castings done in iron, I discovered that US is crawling with lost
wax foundries which pour in all kinds of metal. I was amazed to see the
number which pour in stainless, but unfortunately very few listed iron. It
appeared to me the best combination of materials, from a castings
availability standpoint, and if you didn't want an all-stainless wheel,
would be think in terms of brass centers with mild steel tires. Extra work
for the tires but brass casters are a dime a dozen and mild steel would
provide almost as good traction as iron.
Cheers,
Harry
