The owners of Stourbridge-based metal-finishing specialist Midland Deburr & Finish have invested £300,000 in setting up a new company, Midland Impregnations Ltd (MIL) in an adjoining unit to provide a casting impregnation service to foundries and casting machine shops — predominantly in the Midlands.

MIL director Chris Arrowsmith said: “When you make a casting, you can get micro or macro porosity, which will cause the casting to leak and potentially fail in operation.

“A lot of companies will pressure-test their castings and, if they leak, send them out for impregnation. Essentially, what we are doing is sealing the porosity within the castings. Within the automotive-component industry in particular, we felt that there was a gap in the market for the specialised impregnation of castings.”

Along with co-director Paul Young, Mr Arrowsmith identified an opportunity to improve the impregnation process, so around £20,000 was invested in a specialised oven to ‘dehydrate’ the castings before impregnation.

“This is necessary to remove contamination — including machining fluids — from within porosity in preparation for effective impregnation. We also have a solvent-degreasing facility using ultrasonics to remove oil or other contaminations from within porosity. We have combined experience in this field of over 35 years (www.midlandimpregnations.co.uk).

“Our target market is casting companies and companies that machine castings. We have seen high levels of demand since the launch of MIL, ranging from requests for large-volume work down to one-offs. Both companies are approved to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.”