AFS Issues Call for Papers for 113^th Metalcasting Congress
AFS has issued a call for papers for the 113^th Metalcasting Congress to be held at the Paris Las Vegas, Las Vegas, April 7-10, 2009. All papers must be relevant to the metalcasting industry, covering topics such as operations, new technologies, procedures, processes and other innovations, and must contribute to the enhancement of metalcasting quality and productivity.

Abstracts are due Sept. 1, 2008, and complete manuscripts are due Oct. 1. Paper number assignment, offer and abstract forms, authors guide and templates are available on the AFS Metalcasting Congress website.

Co-sponsored by AFS and the North American Die Casting Association, the metalcasting congress is the largest annual gathering for metalcasters in North America.

For more information on submitting a paper to the 113^th Metalcasting Congress, contact Steve Robison, AFS senior technical director, at str@afsinc.org or 800/537-4237 x 227.

East Coast Regional Focuses on Ferrous Melting, Robotics
The 2008 East Coast Regional Conference will be held Oct. 2-4 at the Heritage Hills Golf Course, York, Pa.

Sixteen speakers from world-class organizations will be included in this year's program, covering "Ferroalloy Production in China," Dave Gelwicks, Hickman Williams & Co., "Fluxes for Ferrous Melting," Dave Williams, ASI International Ltd., "Brass & Bronze Casting Scrap," Steve Ducharme, H. Kramer & Co., "Non-Ferrous Scrap Market," Barry Stein, Ansam Metals, "Robotics For the Foundry," John Kuhn, Rimrock Corp., and more. Plant tours of Harley-Davidson and Buck Foundry, as well as a golf outing, are planned.

To download a registration form for this event, visit http://www.keystoneafs.org/ECRC.pdf. The cut-off date for Heritage Resort is Sept. 2. When booking your room, use registration code 28484. For more information, contact George Frigm, vice-chairman, East Coast Regional Committee, at 215/796-0324 or george.frigm@hereaus.com.

2008 Transactions Papers Now Available for Download
The Aluminum Div. 2, Molding Methods & Materials Div. 4, Cast Iron Div. 5, Magnesium Div. 6 and Lost Foam Div. 11 2008 Transactions of the American Foundry Society papers are now available for download via the AFS E-Store. The lost foam download also contains a video clip of bead filling in the paper "Understanding and Improving Bead Filling Parameters that Affect Lost Foam Pattern Quality," H.E. Littleton and J.A. Griffin, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Ala. The Molding Methods & Materials division's papers include the Silver Anniversary paper, "Thermal-Pneumatic Reclamation of Molding Sands for Reuse in Core Work," M. Granlund, Foundry Systems Control, St. Joseph, Minn., and D.V. Silsby, Simpson Technologies Corp., Aurora, Ill.

To purchase any of these papers, click the downloads button on the AFS E-Store home page, and choose the set of papers that you wish to purchase. Once purchased, the .pdf files are immediately available for download.

For more information, contact AFS customer service at 800/537-4237 or estoreservices@afsinc.org.

Free Webinars to Focus on Raw Material Pricing Trends, Reducing Costs
AFS is producing a series of raw materials webinars Aug. 20-21 intended to educate on the many ways ferrous and nonferrous raw material pricing is affecting metalcasting facilities. Dates, times and topics include:

• Aug. 20 at 10:00 a.m. CST - "Ferrous Pricing Trends," Eugene Muratore, Rio Tinto Iron & Titanium America;
• Aug. 20 at 2:00 p.m. CST - "Nonferrous Pricing Trends," Walt Chaput, Omnisource;
• Aug. 21 at 10:00 a.m. CST - "Reducing Costs at a Ferrous Facility," Harvey Fyke, Caterpillar, "Reducing Costs at a Nonferrous Facility," Dan Groteke, Q.C. Designs, Inc.;
• Aug. 21 at 2:00 p.m. CST - "Scrap Prices and Global Barriers to Trade in Steel Scrap," representatives from the American Scrap Coalition.

All of the scheduled webinars are free of charge to AFS Corporate Members. To register for any of the webinars, click on the title of the session(s) you wish to attend. For more information, contact Dave Krugman, AFS PR and marketing coordinator, at dkrugman@afsinc.org.

Casting Design Course Coming
CMI will be offering a Casting Design course Oct. 14-16 at AFS Headquarters, Schaumburg, Ill. An innovative, conceptual approach to the design of metal castings is emphasized throughout this course. Selection of an alloy and how it impacts the design boundaries of a casting are considered. The session also examines a systems approach to casting design. Communications between designer, patternmaker and casting producer are stressed throughout the course. The correlation between costing processes and the design of the casting is reviewed. A tour of a metalcasting facility is tentatively scheduled.