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 FIA Welcomes Precision Machining & Surfacing | |
Welcome to Precision Machining & Surfacing (www.pre-machining.com)as FIA's newest Supplier Member! Located in Bedford Heights, Ohio, Precision Machining & Surfacing provides machining and CNC production of forging dies for the industry.
Dave Slifka, CEO will serve as Official Representative (330.439.9850)
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100 years and Counting, FIA celebrates Anniversary at Annual Meeting. |
With a healthy manufacturing economic environment, diverse program, exceptional location and wonderful weather...(well, maybe not the weather), the 2013 FIA Annual Meeting celebrated FIA's 100th Anniversary May 4-6 at the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, CA. FIA members enjoyed a cool but casual outdoor setting for the opening dinner party Saturday night. After a welcome from FIA President Dennis Potter, Sunday's business presentations were highlighted by the Recognition and Remembrance session, where past leaders and officers had a laundry list of achievements read as they were thanked by a grateful association. Although too many to list here, we will single out Bill Walker, Chairman of the W.T. Walker Group., and FIA's oldest living past President of both FIA and FIERF, who recited his favorite forging industry memories and highlights ...over the past seven decades!
Monday opened with the Safety Awards, presented to companies showing excellent and/or much improved plant safety records in 2012. (Click Here for more info). After review of the current economic and political landscape, attendees heard from Richard Teerlink, former CEO of Harley-Davidson. He was introduced by Pat Thompson of Modern Drop Forge. Modern is Harley's oldest continuous supplier - since 1916. The day's business agenda concluded with bestselling author and leading political satirist P.J. O'Rourke. A Midwestern born and educated man, whose father worked in the metalworking industry, P.J. understood the audience and steered many of his comments directly to them. In fact, P.J. attended the Annual Reception and Banquet that evening, mingling and mixing with attendees who he referred to as "a bunch of great Americans in a Great American industry!" (Click here to read his post-meeting letter to Dennis Potter).
At Monday evening's Annual Dinner/Dance, outgoing FIA President Dennis Potter, HHI Forging, introduced incoming President, Simon Ormerod, Ajax Rolled Ring & Machine to the membership. Thanks Dennis, and congratulations Simon !
In addition to P.J. O'Rouke's remarks, FIA received many positive comments on the meeting from members themselves... Here is a small sampling:
� Thank you for tracking us down and including us in the Centennial celebration. We had a wonderful time !
� A First Class event !
� Great remembrance of our 100th Anniversary !
� Kudos to all involved in preparing the memorable "look back" over 100 years of FIA history - Fantastic job !
� I had a great time at the annual meeting. It was the best I have attended and can't imagine the work that it took to get it to run so smoothly. Well done.
FIA Members: To view attendee/event photos Click Here. To view many of the slide presentations mentioned above, Click Here.
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FIERF Directors and Officers Elected | |
Four trustees were elected to Forging Industry Educational and Research Foundation's (FIERF) Board of Trustees for three-year terms at the FIA Meeting of Members in San Diego. They are:
Rick Recktenwald, President, Walker Forge, Inc. - Clintonville Plant
Al Underys, VP, Estimating/Development/Technology, A. Finkl & Sons Co.
Ron Wallis, Technical Director, Wyman Gordon Forgings Inc.
John Walters, VP, Scientific Forming Technologies Corp.
Rob Mayer, President, The Queen City Forging Co. was elected to a one year term as President of the Foundation.
Chris Scheiblhofer, Chief Metallurgist, Scot Forge Co., Spring Grove Division was elected as Vice President for the coming year.
John Paules, General Manger, Ellwood Materials Technologies and, Rick Recktenwald President, Walker Forge Inc. - Clintonville Plant, to serve on the FIERF Executive Committee with Mayer and Scheiblhofer.
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Forging INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION ELECTS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS AT ANNUAL MEETING | |
Coronado, California -- Four new directors have been elected to the Forging Industry Association's (FIA) Board of Directors for three-year terms. They are:
Glenn Fegely, President, Ellwood National Forge, Irvine, PA
Mike Gill, President, Lasco Engineering Services, Monroe, MI
Drew Papio, VP & GM, Consolidated Industries, Inc., Cheshire, CT
Arnold Visser, COO, IMT, Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada
Simon Ormerod President & CEO, Ajax Rolled Ring & Machine, Inc. York, SC was elected Association President.
Steven Schriner, VP&GM, Commercial Forged Products, a Division of Wozniak Industries, Inc., Bedford Park, IL, was elected as Vice President for the coming year.
Cesar Garza, President, W. Pat Crow Forgings, Ft. Worth, TX and Charles Hopper, Jr., President Composite Forgings Ltd., Detroit, MI were elected to the FIA Executive Committee to serve with Ormerod and Schriner. (Back to Top) |
Awards Presented to Electralloy, IMT and Pat Mooney | |
Newly elected FIERF President Rob Mayer had the pleasure to recognize three FIA Members who have stepped up to support the work of the Foundation at an Anvil Society level. Shown here with Arnold Visser, IMT (left) accepting a Bronze Anvil Award and Tracy Rudolph, Electralloy (right) accepting a Gold Anvil Award. Unable to be present at the Annual Meeting of Members, Pat Thornton, Pat Mooney, Inc. our newest Bronze Anvil Society Member.
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Four New Technology Projects Launched
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The FIERF Board of Trustees recently approved funding for research to benefit the forging industry.
Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago will continue its investigation of void closure in large open die forgings. Industry support and co-sponsoring is provided by A. Finkl & Sons Co. also located in Chicago. The deliverables of the project are as follows:
- Experimentally validated equivalent strain for internal defect closure. The equivalent strain criterion will be provided for both clean and oxidized surfaces.
- Forging schedules needed to ensure equivalent strain for closure is achieved at the center of the billet. These will consider press capacity and productivity.
- Die width ratio optimization to minimize forging pass variability to ensure void closure along the length of the billet. Comparison of simulation software packages.
- Detailed documents (student theses and FIERF summary reports) providing the methodology used to obtain the results and conclusions.
Case Western Reserve UniversityCase Western Reserve University in Cleveland will evaluate Additive Manufacturing as an option to repair dies, as well as a means to additively "coat" new dies with superior materials. Industry partners are American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc. and TECT Power. Project goals are:
- Identify and select methods of additive manufacturing with best promise for forging applications.
- Evaluate the mechanical properties of materials deposited by these methods on steel coupons.
- Use select methods on forging tooling and monitor performance in production.
Marquette University in Milwaukee will study and document best practices for Infrared Thermometer and handheld pyrometer usage within a forge shop and quantify reading errors based on wavelength, single versus dual color as well as multi-wave. Further points of investigation will be the effect of scale thickness on reading accuracy. This project is a result of a recent roundtable discussion at the technical conference. Industry expressed a need for further quantification of reading error as well as documentation on appropriate selection criteria for temperature measurement devices. A best practice booklet and an added education module on temperature measurement will be added to "Die School" after completion. Support for the project is provided by Queen City Forging Co. and the Inductotherm Group.
Ohio State University in Columbus will study process and design variables at various warm forging temperatures. Three students will gain detailed insight into the forging process, die design and microstructures of forgings and therefore fulfill FIERF's mission of training the future workforce for the forging industry. The following points will be evaluated for a typical automotive wheel spindle at forging temperatures of 650C, 800C, 950C and at hot forging temperature of 1200C for comparison.
- Lubricants, coatings and application method
- Forging loads, die stresses, die design options such as multiple shrink fits at various temperatures during start up and steady state
- Die materials and coatings
- Microstructure after forging
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| Fundraiser for Scholarships |  Thanks to all who participated in the silent auction of old magazine forging ads - some from back as far as the 1920's - at Forge Fair and the Annual Meeting. Sales of the ads raised $1790 for Finkl Scholarships. Thank you for your support! |
| May 4th meeting of the FDMC Executive Advisory Board | |
During the May 4th meeting of the FDMC Executive Advisory Board, Mr. Len Liuzzi (of L&L Associates), and Mr. Robert Keeler (of The Timken Company), retired from the board. Len served on the FDMC Executive Advisory Board since its inception in 1999. Not only did Len help forge the FDMC, but he also chaired it from the earliest years until May 2013. Although Bob's service on the board was shorter, he contributed to the board by providing insight into alloy supply issues with respect to forging supply chains. To fill these two slots on the FDMC Executive Advisory Board, Mr. Al Underys of
A. Finkl & Sons and Dr. Dean Bartles of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems were identified among the FIA member companies. The FDMC is a collaborative effort between the Forging Industry Association in Cleveland, Ohio and SCRA Applied R&D in Charleston, South Carolina. For more information about the FDMC please contact Mr. Jon Tirpak through the FDMC's website at http://fdmc.scra.org/
New Chair and Vice Chair of the FDMC Executive Advisory Board - Also during the semi-annual Executive Advisory Board Meeting, Mr. Kevin Shaw, Vice President and General Manager of Lenape Forged Products, and Mr. Cesar Garza, President of W. Pat Crow were elected to the positions of chair and vice chair, respectively. Having served on the board for several years, both men are positioned to lead the FDMC while leveraging their experience within the intersecting industrial and defense sectors. FIA members seeking to become involved in the FDMC should contact Roy Hardy.
The FDMC recently delivered a Forging Design Seminar to 26 engineers located at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The daylong event addressed many topics associated with forging design. Based on the positive feedback from the attendees, the Air Force is exploring an encore presentation in the autumn of 2013. The FDMC proactively reaches out to component designers and buyers to share ideas for effective designs and efficient procurements of forgings.
The FDMC encourages all of the FIA member companies to access the National Forging Tooling Database located behind the FIA Firewall. This database connects forging buyers with forging suppliers. New impression die forgers within FIA are encouraged to upload their defense related tooling lists. As one forger stated, "the NFTD is the cheapest salesman I have that works around the clock." What he meant was that this database requires no commission, no base salary, no benefits while operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
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