GLIDEWELL
SPECIALTIES
FOUNDRY
© 2024 GLIDEWELL SPECIALTIES FOUNDRY, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Glidewell Specialties Foundry Company was founded in
1962 by Aaron S. Glidewell in Birmingham, AL. The foundry
originally serviced the local Birmingham steel mills and
railroad wheel manufacturers. In the late 1960's the
foundry began to produce castings for the coke oven
industry and by the early 1970's was shipping castings
to steel mills all over the eastern half of the United States.
The markets served by the foundry continued to expand
and in the early 1980's the foundry became a major supplier
to some of the larger valve manufacturers in the country.
Since that time Glidewell has made valves which have been
shipped all over the world, including the replacement valves
for a significant portion of the Panama Canal. In 1985
Glidewell Foundry merged with Southern Foundry and
moved to its present day site in Calera, AL.
Glidewell's diversification has continued through the present
to include most of the industries in the United States that
consume heavy industrial castings.
Many improvements were added to the foundry in the 1990's,
which included both mechanical and thermal sand reclamation.
Since 2000, improvements have included a new cleaning room,
complete with a new shot blast machine and pneumatic hammer
for riser removal, new molding sand mixers, a new ductile iron
treatment station, all new chemical and physical lab equipment,
a complete new metallography and solidification lab and several
new building additions. A new core room which included
automated material handling was brought on stream in early
2007. A new 20,000 square foot building addition with a new state
of the art core making center and molding line complete with
automated material handling was added in 2010. It can
accommodate molds up to 120” square and 48” over 48” deep. An
additional shot blast machine with a monorail loop for continuous
production was added in 2013.
ABOUT GLIDEWELL SPECIALTIES FOUNDRY
