Michigan Wheel is a manufacturer of boat/ship wheels located in Grand Rapids, MI. With wheels ranging in size from 5” to 96” and 185 employees Michigan Wheel can handle many wheel applications. Following is a description of the vast manufacturing techniques required to produce quality wheels.
The manufacturing of a wheel is started by sand casting. Sand casting consists of a placing a pattern (made of wood, foam or aluminum) in the sand to make the desired shape. A gating and runner system is also incorporated in the sand mold to help in metal flow and material cooling. To eliminate machining and to add internal features a core is inserted into the mold. When running high volumes of the same wheel green sand will be used. Green sand can be used over many times, which reduces the material costs. Michigan Wheel also uses some die and stainless steel casting that are produced at a different facility.
Following casting, the wheel can take two different routes; a machine finish or a hand finish. The machine finish is a straight forward process. The wheel is loaded in a vertical machining center and the machine cuts the desired shape into the wheel, followed by a hand polishing process. A very accurate wheel can be produced using this finishing process. When finishing a wheel by hand the casting is to near net shape, so only a small amount of material is removed in the finishing process. The wheel passes through a series of sanding and straightening operations to yield the desired shape. The resulting wheel is less accurate then the machined wheel but more cost effective. Following the finishing the wheels are packaged and shipped.
Michigan Wheel has a large range of manufacturing process which allows them to produce a large range of turn-key wheels.