The Madness Begins!

For all of you March Madness fans excited about who made it into the brackets and who will advance in the big dance, what takes place here at Francis Manufacturing Company is another kind of bracketology.  Just like when we were young and played basketball with the kids in our neighborhood, Superior Aluminum Products, our neighbor, is gearing up for the spring building season.  As one of our top customers, Superior Aluminum Products is an industry leader in custom aluminum railings, columns and fencing.  And there, the use of brackets is just a small part of the total product.

But rather than hearing about what they can do for you from us, let’s hear from our guest blogger, Dustin, over at Superior Aluminum Products and see what he has to say!                                                                                                                      

A SUPERIOR CASTING

Thank you for the intro, and thanks for inviting me over to your blog. We really are extremely fortunate to have a company with your longstanding history (73 years in 2019!) not only as a partner, but right across the street to boot!

As a custom manufacturer of aluminum railing, Superior Aluminum relies on responsive and adaptable suppliers, and Francis Manufacturing Company is at the top of the list. In the beginning, Francis poured a few castings used in early Superior designs, such as our legacy Residential series. After that initial tip off, the game was on.

Superior customers quickly recognized the value of the Superior Aluminum railing product lines, in particular complimenting the durability and impressive overall strength of the castings.

In the fifty plus years since, and with the expansion of Superior’s markets, an entire line of aluminum railing products has been developed with Francis Manufacturing Company as our reliable teammates.

Skillfully-crafted brackets, along with other innovative solutions in the casting arena, have been a major contributor to Superior Aluminum railings’ ingenuity, strength, and durability, and help drive specifications for our products. Each casting utilized in Superior Aluminum railing has been carefully crafted and developed by a team of dedicated partners at Francis Manufacturing. Molds were custom-created based upon Superior’s needs, and casting consistency is incredibly high. Precision is a must in all stages of the manufacturing cycle, from engineering, to molding, to pouring and finishing. Any significant shift one way or another would leave Superior with ill-fitting brackets, wobbly bases, or swivel brackets that don’t swivel. The precision techniques utilized at the foundry in molding, pouring, and finishing castings has ensured that none of these issues have ever affected the Superior Aluminum production team or product quality.

In the 1980’s, Superior Aluminum launched a new pipe railing line… a brand-new product becoming popular in the marketplace. Francis was able to aide in product development with innovations in terms of pipe castings. The Superior version of pipe railing product line features a unique unblemished, unwelded finish.

In more recent years, the Superior footprint has expanded to include modern railing lines such as cable railing and pipe cable railing. Once more, we turned to our partners across the street and they delivered with high quality components. Most cable railing systems require bulky turnbuckles to set and tension cables, but Superior is able to do without them, thanks in no small part to the powerful brackets and bases provided by Francis Manufacturing. As is the case with all Superior railing lines, the castings provided have become an integral part of these new products. Just look at this example photo featuring Superior’s most common railing line with all Francis parts circled.

Superior Heavy-Duty Railing and Pipe Railing with Francis Castings circled

There are many more examples than what is spelled out here, but the point is made. Without Francis, Superior would not have been able to build itself into the custom, quality leader in the railing industry. Now if you don’t mind, I have brackets (the other kind) to fill out and basketball games to watch so I am sending it back over to you, Mary Jo!

In Closing:  Thanks Dustin!  Francis Manufacturing Company is proud to be a small part of the high-quality products that Superior Aluminum is able to provide to the building solutions industry.  As a manufacturer of aluminum castings using the green sand process, we continually work with our customers in the development of tooling in order to achieve high quality castings at a competitive price.

Francis Manufacturing Company produces many different castings for Superior, and we are proud to have them as our customer and neighbor.  Whether you are in the market for brackets or any other cast aluminum product, contact Francis Manufacturing Company or submit your RFQ today!