facility fighting in two weight classes. On one side of the approximately 250,000 sq. ft. facility is the centrifugal facility, where the company makes its plumbing pipe. Te pipe is produced on two different types of machines— permanent mold casting lines and a green sand centrifugal line that is the only one of its kind in the world. “A green sand casting machine is similar in design anywhere you go,” said Mike Selz, the company’s commercial
casting division sales manager. “Te permanent mold pipe machines are not something you buy off the shelf. Our guys designed and built them.” Automation is critical to making
Charlotte Pipe’s metalcasting opera- tions run smoothly. “We have automated based on
what we need to produce,” Selz said. “We’ve put controls on everything from an equipment point of view. We use automated pouring, so the only
manual operation is monitoring the production line and transferring the molten metal.”
On the other side of the facility,
which sits on 62 acres a stone’s throw from the Carolina Panthers football stadium, Charlotte Pipe operates two vertically parted green sand molding machines (the machines it is upgrad- ing next year), an automated cope and drag line and a 20 x 24-in match- plate machine. Te array of machines gives Char-
lotte Pipe a wide sweet spot, Selz said. It can produce just about any gray iron casting up to 600 lbs. And the com- pany’s production of both pipe and fittings made it capable of shifting into the commercial market when the move became necessary several decades ago. According to Marshall Coble,
Charlotte Pipe’s senior vice president of foundry operations, each product requires a different level of carbon equivalent in the melt. Te facility offers two separate holding furnaces (one 60-ton and one 80-ton) to main- tain the proper mix. “It’s a higher carbon equivalent for
pipe,” Coble said. “It is a fun balancing act.” Te facility’s automated cupola controls help with the balancing act, Muller said. According to Muller, acquiring the
Charlotte Pipe’s permanent mold casting machines, designed in-house, handle molds differently than most pipe casting operations.
capabilities needed to make commer- cial castings has in turn made the facil- ity more proficient at producing pipes and fittings. A cylinder liner part, for example, helped the company work at improving its castings’ grain structure and wear properties. “Our guys [have] had to learn new things and make things better,” Muller said. “It has gone a long way to refine our technical capabilities.”
A Cyclical Business As a privately held company, Char-
lotte Pipe is under no obligation to release its revenues. But the company’s executives admit 2010 was one of the worst years it’s had financially. “Because we are privately held and
The combination of green sand and centrifugal casting used in this pipe machine is found nowhere else in the world.
24 | MODERN CASTING December 2011
well capitalized, we haven’t laid anyone off, even at our administrative offices,” Muller said. Te company expects better times ahead. 2011 projects to be a better
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