On July 18th, 2018, Danko Arlington was honored to be visited by Voxeljet AG COO/CFO Rudy Franz and Director Investor Relations and Business Development Johannes Pesch.
The company is proud to showcase the first Voxeljet VX1000 PDB machine in the USA. The 3-D sand printer has been in continuous use for the past seven months. So far, it has exceeded expectations. The PDB technology has enabled the company to produce intricate sand molds and cores for aerospace castings. In addition, no longer are delicate cores received broken from 3-D subcontractors – a side-effect from transporting fragile sand across our country’s bumpy roads.
Acquiring new high-quality German made manufacturing machinery has been a tradition at Danko Arlington. The VX1000 PDB replaces our retired and now obsolete manual pattern-making equipment. Sixty years ago, the company’s pattern department boasted new lathes from the Meuser & Co. GMBH Werkzeugmaschinen-Fabrik and a state-of-the-art hand-cranked multi-axis pattern mill from Bohner Köhle (Boko). At that time, many of our patternmakers were also from then West Germany who emigrated to Baltimore where they eventually became company-sponsored US citizens.
The company’s pattern shop will retain its manual equipment for future use with apprenticeship training. Seeing the old and new German equipment still in the same shop is shocking. The solitude and absence of workers is eerie. Who would ever believe that those life-time craftsmen with their precise state-of-the-art equipment would be replaced by digital technology and unattended 3-D printers? One can’t help wondering what will the next sixty-years bring our industry?
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