Castings for the Glass Industry - Franklin Precision Castings

Guide Rings, Plungers, Baffles, Inserts, and More

Franklin is a world leader in the manufacture of investment castings for the glass industry. Cast parts for glass include guide rings, plungers, baffles, neck ring inserts, thimbles, top plates, and more. Our customers in the glass industry continue to rely on us to deliver investment cast parts on tight timelines – which we can achieve due largely to our in-house tooling making capabilities and vast tooling inventory.

We pour a wide range of alloys for the glass industry, including nickel, brass and bronze, cobalt, and stainless steel – right here at our U.S.-based facility. We serve as a dedicated and experienced partner for our customers.

Parts Made for the Glass Industry

Our expert team has decades of experience producing parts for the glass industry, ranging from guide rings and baffles to plungers and inserts. Here are some of the parts we've made for the glass industry using our automated investment casting process.

Guide Rings

These castings help form the lip or seal surface of glass bottles and are poured almost exclusively in nickel-boron alloy.

Blow & Blow Plungers

These castings are used to plunge a hole into semi-molten glass to complete a “blow” operation on the blank side of bottle-making. Plungers are poured in nickel-boron alloy.

Baffles

The baffle is used to form the bottom contour and size of the bottle bottom. It is poured in nickel-boron alloy.

Top Plates

These plates are integrally machined into the mold for the glass container, providing protection and an extended life to the top-forming edges of the bottle. These top plates are cast either in nickel-boron or stainless-steel alloy.

Neck Rings

Neck rings are used to form the threaded or upper neck area just below the lip or seal surface of the bottle. Cast to near net shape, these investment cast rings offer advantages in metal savings, machine time savings, and service life. Usually cast as solid bronze, they can also be cast with nickel-boron inserts in the glass contact area.

Neck Ring Inserts

This specialty product is custom designed to provide a superior glass contact area of the neck ring. Franklin uses our own neck ring inserts as required in our investment cast neck ring production, and also sells these inserts to sand-cast foundries who pour nickel-inserted neck ring castings. Neck ring inserts are cast out of nickel-boron alloy.

Blowheads & Blowhead Inserts

These castings are used to control and direct pressurized air used in “blowing” the final container in the bottle-making process. These are cast in nickel-boron and stainless steel alloys.

Take-Out Castings

Take-outs are used to lift the finished hot glass containers from the opened mold as the final step of the container-making process. These castings are custom designed to accept inserts (usually graphite) that pick the glass bottle up from just below the lip. These castings are poured out of bronze and stainless steel alloys per customer requirements.

Funnels

These castings are used to “funnel” semi-molten glass into the blank mold cavity as the first step in the bottle-making process. Traditionally, these castings are poured in a hardened, wear-resistant stainless steel.