TPi Arcade is the most advanced Aluminum V-Process sand casting facility in the US. V-Process castings are smoother, have thinner walls and twice as accurate as a typical sand casting. Unlimited pattern life, lower tooling costs and 0° draft are a few more advantages. TPi realizes today’s speed to market challenges and is optimized to provide a cast sample in as little as 2 weeks and production parts a week after sample approval. TPi can provide anything from prototypes to low volume production to raw castings to turnkey programs for a single source solution.
Our 55,000 total square-foot facility houses state-of-the-art computer controlled equipment run by our manufacturing experts. Compared with a typical sand foundry, we produce finer finishes and cast to tighter and more consistent tolerances. The result? An upgrade in quality at a comparable or even lower total cost.
We provide a multitude of services not always available from other casting suppliers including:
- Aluminum V-Process manufacturing
- CNC machining, finishing and subassembly
- CAD/CAM systems to receive, integrate and generate numerically controlled programs for rapid, accurate patterns and component machining.
V-Process is truly a crossover process. It can compete with:
- Sand castings on a value-added basis
- Investment castings on a cost basis
- Permanent mold castings on a cost of labor and capacity basis
- Die castings on a cycle basis (at the prototype stage and when the die needs to be replaced at the end of the life of the product)
Any way you shape it, we bring a new dimension to aluminum casting. That’s crucial in today’s CNC machining environment.
Others in the industry can’t match the complete package we offer:
Our People, our processes and our production capabilities
In-House Services:
- Realtime X-ray
- Spectrograph chemical analysis
- Mechanical testing (yield, tensile and elongation)
- T-5 heat treatment
- T-6 heat treatment
- CMM layout
- Welding
- Additional blasting finishes available
Additional Services:
- Machining
- Pressure testing
- Minor assembly
- Die penetrant testing
- Wet and powder painting
- Anodize
- Impregnation
- Others available upon request.
History of the Vacuum-Process (V-Process) at TPi Arcade, Inc
The V- Process was originally developed in Japan. During the late 1970’s the Herman Molding Company located in Zelienople Pennsylvania, was in search of new molding technology to add to their line of foundry products. Bill Willmont, President of the Herman Molding Company, traveled to Japan in this search and purchased the rights to the V-process.
In 1980 Mr. Willmont resigned from the Herman Molding Company to start his own V-Process Foundry in the adjoining town of Harmony, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately his love of the process could not overcome the tough economic times of the early 1980’s. In 1986 he decided to leave the V-Process and sold the company to his largest vendor, whom had worked for Mr. Willmont as Manufacturers Representatives.
In 1985 Taylor Pohlman Inc. purchased the rights to start a V-process foundry in Orchard Park, New York. TPi foundry grew to the point of expansion in 2001, when a new facility was built in Arcade, New York, replacing the Orchard Park facility.
In 2002 Ligon purchased TPi Arcade. TPi Arcade now operates under the Ligon umbrella to provide the best pricing for the V-Process.