Cast Products

OVERVIEW

The foundry at Scaw’s Germiston, South Africa, operation is one of the largest foundries in the southern hemis-phere and produces castings of up to 30 tonnes finished weight. It is a leading ­supplier of ­single-piece, thin-walled locomotive and ­passenger frames, freight car ­components and high ­integrity cast steel ­railway wheels. The foundry holds the American Association of Railroads’ approval for the ­manufacture of freight car side frames, bolsters and cast steel wheels. Other products include large gear segments, high-carbon, high-chromium, abrasion resisting coal grinding elements for coal-fired power stations, high-chromium iron mill liners and impact crushing parts, stainless steel coiler drums, and a range of slag ladles for the metal processing industry.

Arc furnace melting units and a 25 tonne capacity ladle ­vacuum degassing unit serve the foundry where steels can be produced with lower sulphur, ­nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen contents, particularly necessary for the manufacture of high strength, low-alloy steels.
 
Scaw’s other South African foundry in Benoni manufactures a wide range of earthmoving components under licence from the ESCO Corporation, USA, and general engineering products in plain and low-alloy steels of up to eight tonnes finished mass. Other products include manganese wear components for ­gyratory crushers.        

Both foundries are serviced by a large in-house machine shop. Facilities include vertical and horizontal boring mills, CNC machining centres, lathes and planers. Castings of 25 tonnes and five metres in diameter can be machined to close ­tolerances. Smaller castings that require CNC batch production runs are also made.