Duca Manufacturing Co.

Duca Manufacturing was established in 1978 to fulfill the need in the foundry industry for an independent organization with technical depth capable of not only rebuilding, but more importantly, capable of updating all makes and models of induction melting equipment. Our goal was to help existing foundries reduce operational and maintenance costs.

One advantage that our company enjoys is our independent status. Since we have no ties to any original equipment manufacturers, we can update your furnace with our innovative ideas or we can implement quality ideas from another manufacturer's design. Another advantage of being independent is that we can provide unbiased opinions regarding the cause of equipment failures. Because of this, we are regularly called upon to investigate induction furnace problems.

Our technical depth comes from our understanding of the interrelationship of the metallurgical, refractory and electrical aspects of induction melting. This puts us in a unique and more comprehensive position to sort out the real problem from the apparent problem.

Over the years, our satisfied customer list has grown and so have our facilities. In 1978, we started with a 5500-sq-ft facility. In 1982, we moved to our present facility, which then had 16,200 sq ft. In 1988, we expanded our plant with a high bay addition to 20,400 sq ft. In 1991, we purchased an adjacent facility with 4500 sq ft and in 1992, increased that facility to 8500 sq ft.

With today's emphasis on sophisticated solid-state power supplies, the background requirement for a field service technician is that he must be well versed in electronics. The problem that this is creating is that these field service technicians are not as well-versed in furnace-related problems as they should be. Since we do not service solid-state power supplies, our field service personnel concentrate solely on furnace-related problems. Many a damaged furnace of coil has been repaired in place because of this hands-on know-how.

Our involvement in the redesign and updating of induction melting equipment continues. We are constantly looking for ways to eliminate casting problems. For example, we have developed a groundless coreless induction furnace. This, coupled with our AC Ground and Melt To Coil Detector System, minimizes damage to a furnace should an electrical fault or molten metal penetration occur. While our copper water-cooled bushings have been a preferred replacement for stainless steel bushings, our innovative copper water-cooled bushing joint cap virtually eliminates runouts at the bushing joint insulator.

When it comes to increased production needs, we provide higher powered channel furnace inductors of our design and upgrade your existing power supply to realize increased melt rates at a fraction of the cost of new equipment. Our largest, single-loop replacement inductor has a power rating of 3000 kW and has operated up to 3350 kW.

Because some induction melting components wear out with time, we are equipped to provide new replacement components. When an existing "D" section, parallel wound coreless furnace coil was in need of replacement, it was replaced with a new larger square section, single wound coil. Not only did this provide a stronger coil, but it eliminated the water cooling problems because of the larger cooling passage.

In addition to our redesign work, we have been involved in the design and fabrication of new specially designed coreless and channel induction melting equipment. We have supplied new coreless induction furnaces, which batch melt 8000 lb of steel to 3000F in 27 minutes. We have also provided new series-parallel capacitor type power supplies equipped with programmable logic controllers and rated up to 3000 kW for line frequency channel induction furnaces.

Our most recent technical achievements have been in the field of automatic pouring of treated ductile iron. We have developed a channel furnace inductor, which in conjunction with our power supply will update your existing pressure pour furnace to effectively run on treated ductile iron. With our unique inductor loop design, inductor life has been improved from 10 weeks to a record 28 months.

Because not all ductile iron operations can use a channel autopour, we have developed a new, more versatile Horizontal Coreless Autopour to address these production needs. Our unique compact design eliminates the need for pigging molten treated ductile iron because it was too cold or because magnesium had faded out of specification. Our horizontal coreless autopour operates with exceptional performance.

Duca Manufacturing & Consulting, Inc., 761 McClurg Rd., Boardman, Ohio 44512; 216/758-0828; fax [phone].