The type of iron foundries in China

As everyone knows, China has become the largest metal casting manufacturing country, and have thousands of various metal foundries. Herein, we try to classify the iron foundries into five main types, and hope it could give an approximate concept to the buyers who want to purchase metal castings from China.

1. Large iron foundries

Normally, these type of iron foundries are very professional, and have several automatic molding lines, sophisticated inspection devices, related high precision machining equipments, and hundreds of workers. They could produce iron castings of dozens of thousands of tons annually. Such as the FAW Foundry.

However, these foundries usually supply cast iron parts for the local or joint-venture automobile manufacturers. So, they only accept super large orders, such as hundreds of thousands of pieces annually.

2. Specific iron foundries

When I said specific, I meant they mainly produce one or several types of casting parts, and normally do not accept the orders not related with their main products. For example, some foundries mainly produce ductile iron pipes, some mainly produced various standard pipe fittings, some for stove parts, fishing castings, fire grates, paper dryers, hydraulic parts etc.

These iron foundries are specialized with some type of castings, so all their equipments and inspection devices are fitted with their products, and their workers and engineers are familiar with those products. So, they tried to be the best in their areas, and would not like to insert some various products into their routine production.

3. Medium-sized iron foundries

Medium-sized foundries means the foundries with over hundred workers, one or two automatic molding lines, and about thousands of tons output. These foundries usually have several types of molding processes, such as automatic molding lines, resin sand casting process, shell molding process and traditional green sand molding process, some foundries use the molding machines.

These foundries have some normal machining equipments, so they could do most of machining works in-house, and they have some basic inspection devices to check the materials and dimensions.

Normally, these foundries do not have very special products. They are willing to produce any types of iron castings that they could produce. Such as machinery parts, pump and valve parts, pipe fittings and many civil and industrial use castings. So, they could accept middle and large orders, such as Dandong Foundry.

4. Small iron foundries

Small foundries means the iron foundries who have dozens of workers, and can produce hundreds of tons annually. Most of them use manual green sand casting process and shell molding process, some small foundries have some basic machining equipments, but they could just make some rough and no n-precision machining works.

These foundries only have some basic inspection devices, but they are willing to accept small orders, and rough castings.
Most of small iron foundries in China could not export iron castings directly, so they have to cooperate with the larger foundries or trading companies.

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