Michigan Wheel Corporation Tour

Michigan Wheel Corporation manufactures propellers which are used the marine industry. The propellers which they produce range from a few inches in diameter to 96 inches in diameter. They basically make their propellers out of three different materials, one is an aluminum based material, a mixture of nickel, aluminum, and bronze which is termed Nibrow, and a bronze material.

We tour the three main areas of the manufacturing facility which was broken down into the casting area, the machining area, and the finishing area.

The main type of casting which Michigan Wheel does is sand casting. They use both a green sand, and regular beach sand. We learned about the different types of pouring of the material into the mold, whether the mold is filled from the top or bottom. We also learned how the green sand molds are made. First, a match plate is used, of which Michigan Wheel has about 7500. The match plate is inserted in a machine, where upon the green sand is blown in at 125 psi. and is "squeezed" around the match plate. The mold is then equipped with a screen and a filter in the sprue which allows only the purest metal to reach the actual part cavity.

The machining area is used for reaching the final dimensions on the propellers which are required to meet small tolerance bans. CNC mills are used to face the blades of the propellers to the proper pitch. Also, vertical lathes are used to bore the centers of the props, and to face off the bore length to the required dimension.

For other propellers, pitch adjustment and grinding is done manually. Adjustments are done with hydraulic presses to hold the propellers, and sledgehammers are used to achieve the correct pitch. Pneumatic hand operated grinders are used to finish of the surface to the approximate look. Michigan Wheel finishes the propellers using gravel flow and other types of media flow systems. The finished propellers have a very appealing appearance upon completion of the finishing. It was a very experience to see the entire process of raw ingots of material, which resulted in finished goods in the same manufacturing facility.