Castle Metals Continuously Upgrades Waterjet System

Castle Metals' Kansas City Facility has continuously upgraded and improved its abrasive waterjet system.

Today, the company not only provides material, but also offers "toll processing" or custom cutting on its waterjet system for large parts and any size production runs.

Castle Metal's ESAB system, is one of the largest in the Midwest featuring: four cutting heads, two-100 HP intensifiers, CNC controls, two large tandem tables (13' x 25' and 13' x 13') water chillers, four1,000 lb abrasive hoppers, abrasive recycling, and a water purification system.


This specialized system is the result of over five years of work by the Castle Metals' Kansas City crew. The team's effort has not only helped the company develop its current configuration in KC but has allowed Castle Metals to mirror this system in its Wichita, KS facility to support the overall waterjet efforts in the Midwest.

"The company recognized the potential for abrasive waterjet cutting in 1998," stated Dan Bentz, abrasive waterjet sales manager. "Then we realized how inefficient our first system was for the market at that time, so our team went back to the drawing board and designed the layout for our current systems. We focused on improving the process by breaking it down into components: cutting, motion control, pressure, water purification & cooling, etc. and developed a much more efficient and cost-effective system. Now we can offer our customers improved service and efficiency, bottom line cost savings! All of these items combined have helped us make the overall benefits of the waterjet process more affordable for our customers."

A special video section on the company's website: www.castlemetals.com/html/ am_videos.asp demonstrates the waterjet system.

The waterjet team at Castle Metals worked very closely with different manufactures to develop its system. Today, these companies send potential customers to the Castle Metals KC facility to view the stateof-the-art system and take advantage of its unique capabilities.

Any customer that uses a CAD based system can forward DXF or DWG file extensions for ease of conversion.

Besides the abrasive waterjet operation, the KC facility is also a fullservice metal distribution center.

The 155,000-sq.-ft plant, carrying over $6 million of inventory, offers: bar, plate, coil, sheet, tubing and pipe in a wide range of metals including: carbon, cast iron, alloy, aluminum, stainless, nickel, titanium, copper and brass.

Processing and services provided at the ISO 9002 certified company include: aluminum plate sawing, bar cutting, plasma (profile & beveling) & flame cutting, stress relieving, shot blasting, and blanchard grinding.

Castle Metals, a 113-year-old company, has been in the KC area for over 56 years. The KC facility is part of the Central Plains Region, which includes the geographic areas of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The company has 22 service centers across the U.S. including Wichita, KS and Tulsa Oklahoma.


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