Machines

The clamping force of the casting machine sets the hard limit on how big a part can be — it has to hold the die shut against the pressure of the melt. The work envelope of the CNC machines sets the limit on what can be machined afterwards. These two figures settle more enquiries than anything else on this site.

We have a die casting machine for aluminium and zinc, gravity die casting, CNC turning, CNC milling, boring, a heat treatment furnace and blasting. It all stands in the same building at Torvstikkeren 20 in Råde, a purpose-built plant we moved into after a three-year process that began in 2020.

What we have not published is how many machines there are, which makes and models, and what clamping force they have. We are building that overview now. Until it is finished: call, and you will have the answer in a minute.

The plant runs a closed loop for all process water, recovers waste heat from the melting furnaces to warm the building, and has its own rooftop solar installation.

How to read the figures when they arrive. Clamping force in tonnes is compared with the projected area of your part in the parting plane, not with its weight — that is the area the injection pressure acts against. The work envelope of a mill is compared with the outer dimensions of the part plus the fixture; a part that just fits the envelope rarely fits once it sits in a jig. The number of axes decides how many set-ups the part needs, and every set-up is both a cost and a link in a tolerance chain.

It is also worth knowing what is not on this list, because it matters just as much in a qualification: we do not do sand casting, we do not build tooling ourselves, and we do not anodise or paint in house. Tools are procured from toolmakers we use regularly, and anodising and powder coating go to subcontractors. Everything else in the chain — melting, casting, degating, heat treatment, machining and blasting — happens at the same address.