Cnr Van Lingen Street and La Bassee,
Germiston Ext. Gauteng, South Africa
Tel: 011 873 5093
Email: greg@vfdy.co.za
Company profile
Teamwork has been the key to the success of Viking Foundry in Germiston, Gauteng, which was started by the late George Estman and his son Grant in 1994. At that stage the company was known as GSG Foundry but changed the name to Viking Foundry in 2005. Grant’s son Greg joined the company in 20xx and is now the Production Director at Viking Foundry
Viking Foundry’s first furnace was a 250kg Radyne furnace, which was very much against the norm in those days, but through extreme hard work and perseverance, the company has now progressed to being able to cast up to 4,25 tons in steel and double that in iron. The company has a 200 ton a month capacity. The majority of this is made up of ferrous metals but on average Viking Foundry casts 25 tons of aluminium, copper, brass and the bronzes a month. Stainless steel comes in at about 10 tons.
The company regards itself as a jobbing foundry because it is recognised for its ability to cast a very diverse range of materials in small quantities in a very short turnover time. Typical industries serviced in the foundry are those in the crushing, mining and engineering related fields including pump components. It is a varied base, with SG forming the bulk of the work, followed by iron, steel, manganese, chrome and stainless steel.
Phenolic resin introduced
Throughout the company’s history Viking Foundry has used greensand and CO2 moulding techniques and it still offers these processes as a service. However, in 2008 Viking introduced chemically bonded sand moulding into its production process in both foundries. The company continues to offer greensand and CO2 processes.
This change coincided with a move to new premises and the introduction of new equipment in the form of a 20 ton an hour continuous mixer, a vibrating table, a shakeout, classifier and 30 ton capacity silos.
The move in 2008 increased Viking’s under roof facility to 10 000 m². The increased space and separate buildings allowed the company to locate the ferrous and non ferrous foundries in their own buildings. The fettling shop and patternshop are also housed in their own buildings. An added bonus is that Viking Foundry now has a completely separate building for management and administration, one for all the production staff and one for where they store all the clients’ patterns.
The patternshop is equipped with a Haas GR-510, which is a gantry-style router with 3,073 x 1,549 x 279 mm travels and a 40-taper milling head. Its 10 000-rpm spindle and powerful 11 kilowatt vector drive system provides the power and speed to cut patterns.
The late George Estman, who first competed in the world road cycling championship games in London in 1948 and again the following year in Denmark, went on to win a silver medal at the Olympic games in Helsinki in 1952. He began his apprenticeship at the age of sixteen at the old (Roan Jewell) foundry, which was situated next to where the Carlton Centre is today. George has been a moulder all his life, having worked at Scaw, (Sangers) foundry and Woogard Pattern Makers for twenty years. The Viking emblem stems from George’s father, who had Finnish origins.
Grant Estman trained as an aircraft mechanic and has been in the foundry industry for the past 28 years, learning by experience, although he does have a diploma in Production Management and has completed an 18-week Wits Technikon Foundry Engineering course.
Greg Estman joined the company in 2008 after studying metallurgy at Wits Technikon (UJ) for two years and then qualified as a patternmaker at a local manganese foundry.
Viking Foundry casts the following materials:
Ferrous
Stainless Steel (All grades)
Steel (All grades)
Cast Iron (All grades)
SG Iron (All grades )
Chrome Irons (All grades)
Manganese Steel
Non Ferrous
Aluminium (All grades)
Gunmetals
Brass
Bronze
Copper
Viking Foundry offers the following services:
Product design & development
Pattern making
Moulding
Casting
Heat treatment
Machining
Non destructive testing
Coating
Products
Viking produces high quality castings for a wide range of industries, including:
Pneumatic: compressor housings, pistons, covers, bodies
Hydraulic: housings, cylinders, bodies
Pumps: impellers, expellers, volutes, casings, stuffing boxes, wear rings
Valves: bodies, gates, butterflies, fittings
Thermal processing: grates, hanger brackets
Cement: high temperature kiln / mill parts
Mining: wear parts, axle boxes, hopper / canon box wheels, couplings
Refining: high temperature furnace parts
Agriculture: wear, seeder and harvester parts
Earthmoving: ground engagement tools, housings
Electric motor: housings, covers, shields, caps
Friction: brake / clutch discs, cylinders etc.
Power generation: Heat resistant consumables / linings
Shot blasting: wear parts, blades, liners
Guniting: machine components and wear parts
Railways: brake / suspension components
General engineering: wheels, axle bearing assemblies, couplings, bushes
Viking Foundry was tasked by APE Pumps to cast an impeller, which is part of a centrifugal water pump that is in operation at a local power station. The large and difficult impeller was cast in stainless steel CA15. Gross weight of the casting was 3 250 kilograms with a final nett weight of 2 180 kilograms. The casting had a diameter of 1650 mm and a height of 1200 mm with a vain thickness of 50 mm, a heavy centre boss and outer wall thickness of 110 mm
Viking Foundry’s patternshop has a Haas GR-510, which is a gantry-style router with 3,073 x 1,549 x 279 mm travels and a 40-taper milling head. Its 10 000-rpm spindle and powerful 11 kilowatt vector drive system provide the power and speed to cut patterns
One of the furnaces in the ferrous foundry
Moulds being filled
A general view of the ferrous foundry
A 20 ton an hour continuous mixer in the ferrous foundry
The fettling area
A general view of the non ferrous foundry
