At Walla Walla Foundry, CAM software is part of a commitment to advancing fine-art casting with the application of technology. Combining Delcam’s PowerMill CAM system and five-axis machining with its expertise in producing contemporary sculpture is allowing the foundry to offer a unique service to its artist clients.
Mark Anderson established the Walla Walla Foundry — based in Walla Walla, Washington — in 1980, specifically to provide casting services to support both his endeavours and those of his fellow local artists.
During his time at Whitman College studying for a Studio Art degree, he had met several artists who needed castings, so he spent the summer setting up a small foundry in a garage to help them. The company achieved early success as a result of its great quality of casting; the word spread, and some major artists began placing work.
In 1999, Dylan Farnum, who is now the company’s president, joined Walla Walla Foundry and began taking the machining department from the CNC milling of just castings to the full five-axis machining of detailed art pieces. He remembers that a pivotal moment in the company’s development was its decision to use CAM software from Delcam (
www.delcam.com) after a valued customer said: “If you don’t get Delcam software, you will be lost — pure and simple!”
Mr Farnum said: “PowerMill changed everything. Compared with our old CAM system, using the Delcam software for the first time was like a big light going on. PowerMill opened up a whole new world for us. We were faster and better at what we were doing; in fact, we ended up buying two new five-axis machines to expand our milling capabilities.” Aaron Hamilton, who is in the engineering department at Walla Walla Foundry, started using the Delcam software about a year ago.
“I prefer it over any other software I have ever used. The menus are well laid out, and it’s easy to work through problem areas on a model.
"I also find the software to be particularly visual and the help menus to be extremely helpful — plus I can modify any tool-path on the fly. PowerMill works really well for us.”
Jon Marc Kortsh, the foundry’s engineering manager, adds: “When you are working with someone else’s art and you are in charge of replicating it exactly as the artist intended, it is so important to be able to modify a nuance that you perceive — or that the artist perceives — as important.
We work with complex models and feel we are guaranteed zero collisions with PowerMill. We have the confidence that we can go home and run ‘lights out’, with no fear of coming back to work in the morning to find a big mess.
“With what we do, almost every single part has never been run before, and we generally run only one part. We almost never have the opportunity to re-run a part, so all of our time is spent trying to program perfection into the manufacturing process. It cannot crash; just one crash could mean many thousands of lost dollars.
"We are confident that if the PowerMill software says a program will run without a collision, it will run perfectly. We have never had a crash or collision, and we have the utmost faith in our Delcam software. Furthermore, the post-processor support that we get from Delcam allows us to continue to run our many different machines; and if we need a post-processor change, we get it really fast.”