Exothermic and insulating feeding systems (or feeders) are common practice in our industry. With the development of modern high production molding equipment, we have accepted the challenges in developing feeding aids for these new systems.

Innovative rigging systems have also helped foundries improve productivity by increasing the number of castings per mold. Although this is a positive economic change, it limits positioning, sizing and feeder contact area on the pattern plate, making it challenging for the foundry engineer to produce shrink-free castings. Advancements in manufactured feeding aids are trying to meet the challenges foundries face by balancing improved processes, productivity demands and costs while maintaining high quality castings.

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The use of exothermic and insulative feeding systems - sleeves and pouring cups - have been common practice for many years. Increasingly over the last three decades, foundries have improved productivity by increasing the number of castings per mold. This economical change has resulted in more restrictive positioning of the feeding sytems on the pattern plate.

This reduction in feeder size and contact area makes it challenging to maintain feeding performance. Advancements in manufactured feeding solutions continue to be developed to meet these challenges foundries face with balancing improved processes, productivity and costs while maintaining high quality castings.

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For 20 years, HA-International has been doing one thing with absolute focus and tenacity: proudly serving the needs of our customers. And we think that's something to celebrate!

Since Delta-HA and Borden Chemicals merged in 2001, HA-International has honored the 100+ years of global service those two companies provided. Along the way, we evolved into a trusted leader in innovative products and solutions that bring superior value to our customers.

We are excited to share our 20th anniversary with you as we continue our passion for performance, quality, consistency and customer focus. Now more than ever, we remain driven to re-invent products and services while exceeding your expectations.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve such a wonderful industry. Your hard work and determination inspire us to achieve even higher standards of excellence.

Read Our Special Message

HIGH PERFORMANCE FEEDER SYSTEMS
Chemex Feeder Systems are especially ideal for complex castings including intricate designs and rapid molding processes. This technology uniquely allows feeder placement in previously inaccessible locations.

The exceptional variety of Chemex feeders provides you with many options in feeding systems for your complex castings. The ultramodern method of fabrication with cold box binder systems combined with the innovative tele-feeder technique represents a major breakthrough in feeder technology.

Tele-Feeder-System
Oval contact meets thin section needs
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Side Insert Sleeves
No hidden hot spots with side insert feeders
Video

Modulus function in feeder geometry
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Aachen, Germany, January 2021. Foundry-Skills is a new, free video wiki with thousands of foundry-specific short videos spread across more than 45 categories. From sand casting to investment casting, from hand moulding to quality assurance, from aluminium to zinc. Here trainees, students, onboarding newcomers and career changers, casting buyers, design engineers and lecturers in foundry technology will find a modern access to expert knowledge in addition to literature.

In a virtual tour through the real foundry world, you can literally look over the foundryman's shoulder as he works, see how real work processes actually run in detail, experience casting processes in direct comparison, as well as different casting materials in different applications.

The Phenolic Urethane Cold Box process (PUCB) is the most widely used, organic chemical process for coremaking in North America. Its reputation for being versatile, highly productive, and cost efficient are the reasons it remains popular today, especially for metalcasting in the automotive, mining, and agricultural supply chains.

The appreciation for PUCB systems primarily comes from these benefits: faster cycle times; applicability for ferrous and nonferrous casting; excellent performance for highly complex cores; high mechanical strength; and effective thermal characteristics.

Finally, a feeding material that provides a shrinkage-free casting and increases casting productivity - even on the most complex designs.

Chemex Tele-feeder Systems are especially ideal for complex castings including intricate designs and rapid molding processes. This technology uniquely allows feeder placement in previously inaccessible locations.

Significant Benefits:

• Increases productivity with higher yield and faster cleaning time
• Increases quality with reduced casting scrap and rework
• Reduces environmental footprint with reduced energy
• Decreases scrap - low fluorine content results in reduction of fluorine content in molding sand, which leads to a decrease of scrap
• Expands the locations for feeder placement
• Reduces surface defects with fluorine-free material

In an industry that has been around for many centuries with a wealth of knowledge and experience, we still today find ourselves when analyzing casting defects asking, "what changed?" This is because we understand that our industry is process dependent and controlling those processes is key to success. Refractory coatings are one of the products that we utilize to produce quality castings. Although usage is small in comparison, these products are applied at the mold/metal interface which is critical when it comes to defects. Crushes, inclusions, scabs, expansion, gas, metal penetration, misruns and rough surface defects can all be affected by refractory coating practices. Therefore, how do we control this aspect of our foundry operations?

Start your casting process with clean, oxide and hydrogen-free molten aluminum. With HAI's Wedron Flux Metal Processing Solutions in your metal preparation process, you can:

• Produce cleaner degassed alloys
• Reduce the overall metal content of your dross
• Keep your furnace running clean and efficient

Improved casting integrity and enhanced cleanliness of your molten metal processing system means defect-free aluminum castings produced with less downtime and fewer manhours.

Wedron's environmentally friendly products and services for molten metal processing include a wide range of flexible systems that can be tailored to your individual production needs.

If you have dealt with core / mold making in the metal casting process, then most likely at some point you have dealt with the Phenolic Urethane Cold Box process (PUCB). PUCB is the most popular binder system for coremaking and the most widely organic chemical process in North America. The main key drivers that have propelled the PUCB is its versatility, productivity, and cost of use. Industries such as the automotive, mining, and agricultural depend on PUCB for their core making process.

Bioset T8000
An exclusive HAI PUNB technology that delivers the lowest smoke and odor at molding, pouring, cooling & shakeout without compromising your bottom line

PRODUCTIVITY & QUALITY

High mechanical tensile strengths

• Maintains mold/core integrity at handling, closing, and pouring using lower binder levels

Engineered for different applications

• Ferrous and non-ferrous
• Core and mold making
• New and reclaimed sand systems

Excellent performance when reclaimed sands are used

• High reclaimability ratio
• Low cost of usage
  • $US/TON of mixed sand

Improve your shell core making environment in hot & Humid climates!

REDUCED EMISSIONS
70% reduction in ammonia and formaldehyde emissions vs. conventional formulas

INCREASED HUMIDITY RESISTANCE
Humidity resistance is substantial vs. other environmental grades

REDUCED LUMPING
Reduced lumping means better flowability in hot and humid climates

For almost three decades, foundries in Mexico have trusted HA-International and Garmi del Norte S.A. de C.V. for their commitment to making better castings.

Today, these two companies are unified under one name to serve the Mexican foundry industry, HA Quimica de Mexico S.A. de C.V.

Our new name and look reflects our singular and continued commitment to the development and distribution of innovative resins, resin coated sand, refractory coatings and metal feeding systems to produce better castings at less cost.

As a combined company, we are the most trusted name in the Mexican foundry industry as the largest supplier of products for core and mold production.

"This new joint venture with our long-standing partner GARMI represents an important step for the HA Group, and further strengthens our global foundry leadership position in Mexico", said Franz Friedrich Butz, President of HA and Board Chairman.

Behind the HA name is more than fifty years of superior quality and service to the metal casting industry. Because the quality's in it-our name is on it.

During this season, we take time to reflect upon the good things we have... like the partnerships between HAI, core shops, and your foundry. We are thankful for the opportunity to be part of your team, and look forward to working with you in the years to come.

Our team would like to thank you for a wonderful 2019, and wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Office will be closed: Dec. 24-25, Dec. 31- Jan. 1, and reopen January 2, 2020.
Shipping locations will be closed: Dec. 23-25 & Dec. 30-Jan. 1, and reopen January 2, 2020.

HA-International is proud to be attending the 2019 College Industry Conference, November 21 & 22 in Chicago.

Hope to see you there!
More info: Click Here

As casting geometries become thinner in design and more complex, the influences from resin selection will place a more crucial role in providing a solid casting. An aluminum foundry was experiencing issues with a dendritic type shrinkage defect that was related to a recent change in a resin package, resulting in higher scrap rates from the shrink defect.

The only variable that changed and created the dendritic type shrink defect in this case was the resin. HA-International designed an experiment to determine how PUCB resin percentages, and solvent packages used in urethane cold boxes affected the influence of shrink on this particular aluminum A316 casting during solidification.

Evaluation occurred on a newly developmental phenolic urethane cold box and a modified version of this new system, utilizing the latest solvent packages found in HAI's SigmaCure series of phenolic urethane cold box (PUCB). The experimental setup of the study included computer aided modeling, analytical testing, and actual casting tests to generate cooling curves. These results, in conjunction with the temperature dependent properties were used to create simulation model datasets for the cold box sand mix in order to simulate the actual sand mold physical properties and understand how it was creating the shrinkage defects. Between 1,500-2,000 design iterations were conducted in modeling software to obtain a dataset that matched the results from actual lab casting results. The specific heat capacity and density results required for the simulation datasets were measured directly using instrumentation on test molds.

WESTMONT, IL (September 2019) – HA-International announced today that Kelley Kerns has joined their leadership team as Director of New Business Development. Kerns comes to HAI with extensive technical and operations experience in the foundry industry.

"Kelley brings a strategic mindset and proven track record of developing new technical initiatives as he holds numerous patents in the foundry industry," said Michael Feehan, President. "We look forward to his contributions to building our business and brand."

Previously, Kerns was Director of Sales for the Foundry, Metals and Lime Group at Covia. Prior to that, Kerns was Senior Director of Operations at Fairmount Minerals where he held many technical service and management roles in his 20+ years with the company. Kerns began his career at Ashland Chemical working in the Foundry Products Division.

Kerns graduated from The Ohio State University with a master's degree in Business Administration and has additional degrees from the University of Northern Iowa. Recently, he was the 2018 President of the Foundry Education Foundation.

Product Specialist Feeding Systems
HA-International LLC - Westmont, Illinois, 60559

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PRODUCT MANAGER
HA-International LLC - Westmont, Illinois

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HA-International has been supplying binder and activators specifically designed for 3D sand printing for over five (5) years, which means we have been developing superior furan resins, including those for all 3D printers for sand core and molds, for more than 20 years. Our low viscosity resin has been specially manufactured for use in all sand core and mold 3D printers, for use with all types of metals.

When it comes to experience with 3D printing of sand and mold cores, our reputation has stood the test of time.

MEASURABLE RESULTS
HA delivers superior print head compatibility and longevity with the dimensional accuracy 3DP casting customers demand. And, our unique combination of binder and select activators provide the fastest part extraction and ease of cleaning. And... our resins are priced more affordably than others on the market.

BENEFITS

• Increased productivity – resin helps print heads to last longer
• Reduced labor – printed molds and cores are cleaned faster
• Reduced costs – resin is very economical

Hüttenes-Albertus Chemische Werke GmbH (HA) and Garmi del Norte S.A. de C.V. (Garmi) announced their new joint venture, which will be serving the Mexican foundry industry. With this transaction HA Group will bundle all its commercial activities in Mexico in the new corporation named HA Quimica de Mexico S.A. de C.V. (HAMEX).

HA-International LLC (HAI, a HA Group company) is the market leading manufacturer and supplier of foundry resin systems, resin coated sand for shell molding and refractory coatings for North America. Garmi, a market leading manufacturer, distributor and supplier of foundry products and logistical services in Mexico, has been a longstanding representative of HAI in the northern region of Mexico.

"This new joint venture represents an important step for the HA Group, and further strengthens our foundry leadership position in Mexico", said Franz Friedrich Butz, President of HA. His Co-President Christoph Koch adds "The joint venture with Garmi demonstrates our long-term commitment as a solutions provider that is well positioned to deliver sustainable customer value within the foundry industry, while broadening our product portfolio and providing innovative technologies and services to our customers globally."

It is well known that metals change volume during solidification. This volume change must be compensated during solidification otherwise shrinkage defects can occur in a casting, making it unusable for its stated purpose.

This has been solved through the use of adding a metal reservoir commonly known as a "feeder" the purpose of which is to supply liquid metal to the casting as it cools and solidifies.

As this technology has developed and been improved, newer types of feeder materials have become available, including combinations of exothermic-insulating and highly exothermic compositions. The choice of material depends upon the application.

We know your time is valuable and trust that you were able to find everything you needed. Our new introductions of CHEMEX feeders, Enviroset^® 3D Jet Resin & Catalyst, UCB Sigma Cure 138/238, EcoFlo Resin Coated Sand and EcoLite VOC Exempt Coating were met with great enthusiasm.

If we can assist with your Resin, Resin Coated Sands, Refractory Coatings, Feeding Systems, or Metal Treatment, please contact us.

Our overriding goal is to provide the technical expertise and products to help all foundries achieve higher productivity and profitability.

We also encourage you to "Follow HA-International" on LinkedIn for the latest in company news, research highlights and new products.
To follow HA, CLICK HERE.

Regards
Andy Koch, Vice President Sales & Marketing
HA-International

I always have believed that to successfully implement a new resin system in an existing or new customer, it is necessary to take into consideration four important factors: Materials, Methods, Manpower, and EH&S. The first three represent a three-sided equilateral triangle, which in turn is being supported by safe practices and products. If any of the sides of the triangle are unbalanced, the chances of carrying out a successful implementation could be compromised. Any substantial deficiency of any of the 3 M's (Materials, Methods, Manpower), will require that the other two be challenged at a higher degree.

EcoLite refractory coatings feature the latest light-off / fast drying technology. By using VOC-Exempt solvent packages, the flexibility and advantages of solvent based coatings can now be realized while minimizing the permitting of VOCs. Whether lowering the VOC impact of alcohol coatings or increasing productivity of water based coating applications, EcoLite coatings provide a unique value to today's foundry.

The metalcasting industry has a great reputation when it comes to recycling. However, environmental stewardship involves more than recycling. Using materials with more advanced environmental benefits is where metalcasters can take a leading role to mitigate some of the environmental challenges they face while creating a healthier and safer work environment.

AM for cores and molds is gaining popularity because of the flexibility and complexity it offers in production, but productivity is critical to the long-term prospects

Additive manufacturing of sand cores and molds has attracted the attention of many foundries in recent years due to the process' unique ability to form core shapes that cannot be manufactured using conventional coremaking techniques. It does this by a process called "binder jetting": a reactive resin, most commonly, a furfuryl alcohol-based (FA) binder formulated for the application is deposited on a substrate. Typically, the substrate is a silica sand that has been pretreated with an acid catalyst, but it can be a number of other aggregates used in metalcasting, such as zircon and synthetic ceramics.

Finally, casting feeder technology that produces a shrinkage free casting while decreasing production costs on even the most complex designs.

Patented Tele-feeder Systems are especially ideal for complex castings including intricate designs and rapid molding processes. This technology uniquely allows feeder placement in previously inaccessible locations.

Significant Benefits:

• Increases productivity with higher yield and faster cleaning time


• Increases quality with reduced casting scrap and rework


• Reduces environmental footprint with reduced energy


• Expands the locations for feeder placement


• Reduces surface defects with fluorine-free material

• New drossing, clearing and degassing fluxes for copper based alloys. Eco grades reduce porosity by removing dissolved gasses in your copper based alloys. Simple plunge applications are very effective in reducing your scrap rate.


• Our new Zinc flux can be used on emersion tube melting and holding furnaces without corrosion concerns.


• HA-International has the only non-reactive commercial grade LEAD flux. Reduce the metallic content of your dross. Weight reduction saves not just alloy, it's an ergonomic savings. A reduction of up to 40% in weight will reduce operator injuries.


• Our Rotaflux and Injection systems have been upgraded and now have the ability to harvest data. Now you can find out what happened on third shift two weeks ago. Our systems record all functions or each cleaning and degassing cycle:
  
  
  1. Retained Data Options
  2. Operator Identification
  3. Ladle or Furnace Identification
  4. Time and Date
  5. Gas Flow Rates
  6. Flux Addition
  7. Rotor Speed
  8. Rotor Amp Draw Indicates Performance
  9. Cycle Times, Injection & Purge