Virginia Forge to Add New Forging Press

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Virginia Forge Company (Buchanan, Virginia), part of the MFC Group (Meadville, Pennsylvania), is planning to build a 22,400 square-foot building and install a second forging press in order to expand production of wheel hubs and other automotive parts from 5 million to 10 million a year.

The $18 million project will also include building a new water treatment facility, which will be the first phase of the project. The press and related equipment have been ordered, and the company has selected Avis Construction, Incorporated (Roanoke, Virginia) to serve as the general contractor. The site has been graded and the company expects construction to begin by the end of August or early September, when final permission is expected to be granted. The company is shooting for a February 2006 completion date, with equipment installation scheduled for that time.

Virginia Forge has recently completed a machinery expansion, which had been announced in early 2005, requiring the addition of eight new employees. The present expansion will create 21 new jobs for the area.

Virginia Forge is highly automated, running steel through its 2,500-ton, 5-station vertical transfer forging press on a walking beam-type mechanism at the rate of 30 pieces per minute. The forging cell is integrated with a 2,500 kilowatt induction billet heater that can process 170 pounds of steel per minute.

From the vertical transfer press the various parts go directly to integral-quench heat treating furnaces, which can handle 6,000 pounds per load, for tempering, and then to a completely automated machining cell where the parts are polished and finished without ever being handled by human hands.

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