In late 2023, I received a call from a die casting plant manager in Hai Phong, Vietnam. His plant supplies aluminium components to Japanese and Korean automotive customers. His energy bill had risen 35% in two years. He told me: “Our customers will not...

Selecting a die casting furnace for automotive parts is not about buying the biggest furnace or the one with the lowest price. It is about building a system that delivers the right metal, at the right temperature, with the right chemistry, to...

Metal loss in secondary aluminium melting is not a single problem. It is a chain of losses — oxidation at the melt surface, metal trapped in dross, salt slag carryover, and furnace atmosphere reactions. Each link in the chain has a different cause and ...

Setting up a die casting furnace is not about turning a dial to a number on a chart. It is about matching the furnace to the alloy, the die, the machine, and the part. Get it right, and you produce consistent castings shift after shift. Get i...

Gas porosity is the most common internal defect in aluminium die casting. It shows up as round, smooth cavities on X-ray. It causes leaks in structural parts. It ruins machined surfaces. And it costs foundries millions in scrap every year. In my 25 ye...

A380 and ADC12 are the two most common aluminium die casting alloys in the world. They look similar on a spec sheet. They behave differently in a furnace. If you run both alloys on the same line — as many foundries do — you need to understand the tempe...

In early 2024, I received a call from a foundry manager in Guangdong Province. His plant supplies aluminium die castings to several automotive OEMs in China and Southeast Asia. Their main product is a structural component for electric vehicles — a moto...

In late 2023, I was contacted by a die casting plant in Rayong, Thailand. They supply structural components for electric vehicles — battery trays, motor housings, and front shock towers. Their main customer is a Chinese OEM that has invested heavily in...

The electric vehicle has changed the die casting furnace more in five years than the internal combustion engine did in fifty. That is not an exaggeration. When Tesla introduced the first “gigacast” rear underbody in 2019, it set off a chain reaction th...

Something has changed in Southeast Asia. Five years ago, most foundries in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia were running old gas-fired furnaces and patching them up. Today, they are investing in new equipment. Not because they want to. Becaus...