Foundry

Fort Vale recognised the value of investing in building a foundry in 1999 to complement our manufacturing capability. Our lost wax investment casting process enables us to batch-produce complex components quickly to a high tolerance with an excellent surface finish. In many cases, it is a more efficient and economical process compared with machining and fabrication.

In 2018 we built a new high-tech semi-automated foundry at our head office site, bringing the complete casting process in-house. This facility gives us complete quality control and material traceability and enables us to keep our products competitively priced.

Machining

We continually invest in new, state-of-the-art machinery from the world’s leading machine tool manufacturers and use leading CAM software to make automated toolpath programs for our CNC machines. Our design and operations software are linked so that design changes automatically update our manufacturing data, giving ultimate efficiency.

Press Shop

Within our press shop we have hydraulic and mechanical pressing capability up to 500 tonnes. Our multi-stage CNC progression pressing ability effectively takes us from raw material to finished components. Our press tooling is manufactured, serviced, and supported in-house by our dedicated toolroom.

Welding

Our robotic welders run CMT and pulse welding technologies, and our TIG & MIG welding processes use the latest technology to reduce weld distortion. Fort Vale welders have coded welding expertise in stainless steels, high nickel alloys, titanium, duplex and carbon steels for all pressure vessel applications.