Another method of conveyance from the shakeout is by truck alone but is practical only when the casting size is such that other methods are insufficient.
If trolley conveyors, using hanging baskets or buckets, have been used to transport small to medium sized castings from the shakeout, the basket or bucket can be emptied into a tumble blast loader or transferred directly through a cabinet blast with a minimum of manual handling.
A low-cost method of getting castings from shakeout to the cleaning room uses containers, or tubs, transported by forklift or roller conveyors.
If overhead basket or bucket conveyors are used to deliver castings from shakeout, they can be emptied directly into a tumblast loader.
Whenever possible, it is good practice to process castings through the shakeout, shot blast and automatic grinding processes before performing any manual operations.
Ideally, all risers, gates, runners and other excess metal, such as fins and flashing, will be removed during shakeout. This is often not the case, though, and it becomes the job of the cleaning room to remove any metal that is not part of the final cast shape.
In the case of gray iron castings, many times the gates and in some cases the risers will snap off in the shakeout. Ductile iron castings require a more severe break-off procedure for gates, risers and sprues than gray iron.
It removes all residual sand, but is improperly and expensively misused as a shakeout substitute in some foundries, creating high maintenance costs, work-flow bottlenecks and often adversely affecting finished casting quality.
Chippers are also used to remove core sand which failed to be removed at shakeout or in shot blasting.
In addition, the shakeout operation has to meet production requirements without damaging the casting, and generate a minimum amount of dust and noise.
A variety of equipment, which may be used singly or in combination to perform shakeout and lump reduction operations, is available.
Vibratory decks are most commonly used to perform the shakeout operation.
This type of deck is capable of fulfilling most shakeout operation requirements.
The size of holes in the shakeout deck has to provide the optimum compromise between too large, which gives rapid sand throughput but allows large sand lumps and tramp iron to pass, and, at the other extreme, too small, which slows passage of sand and leads to excessively long shakeout times.
High-frequency shakeout decks are design critical and, while very efficient for sand removal, are susceptible to self-destruction due to metal fatigue.
