Aluminum Sand Casting is a Time-Honored Manufacturing Process
Charles Albertson opened CJ Industries Aluminum Castings in Hopkins, Minnesota, in 1985. From Day 1, he operated the business believing in what we call “The Staying Power of Quality.”
That means we don’t cut corners, and we always strive to deliver the highest quality in every product. It means we use the best materials to achieve quality that’s clearly superior.
Charles’s son Chris Albertson assumed the leadership role at CJ Industries in 2005. He respected that sand casting is a time-honored manufacturing process. So he didn’t try to implement major changes. He recommitted the company to a relentless pursuit of delivering the highest quality products.
That remains the goal of our entire staff today.
Consistent | Reliable | Precise
Production Tooling
Using your samples or prints, we develop precision production tooling that produces premium castings.
Tooling
Our tooling features exacting gating for the most effective inflow of molten metal and minimal waste.
Sand Casting
We have mastered the nuances of this time-honored process so we consistently achieve industry-leading casting quality.
Competitive Advantage
To enhance the surface finish of our castings, we invest in Petro Bond silica sand that produces premium finish quality.
Process
Once you provide samples or e-files of your components, we work with you to produce the most accurate molds.
Experience
Our experienced team examines every casting to ensure we deliver the highest-quality versions of your products.
ISO 9001 Certification
Our commitment to quality is reflected in our achieving and maintaining ISO 9001 certification.
Quality
Our certification ensures we operate with a quality management system that meets the industry’s highest standards.
Our Customers
The quality that CJ Industries delivers has fueled the company’s growth. It’s also why the company retains long-term clients, some who have been relying on CJ Industries since the 1980s.
CJ Industries serves a wide variety of clients across North America. It produces components for use on large off-road vehicles such as tractors and earthmoving equipment. It makes components for production facilities with assembly lines, conveyor belts, and varied electrical fixtures.
With most of these products, tolerances are tight, so precision and quality are priorities. And CJ Industries delivers.
Our output isn’t all heavy duty. CJ Industries also produces essential components for premium musical instruments. These components must be precise and suitable for premium coatings. And that’s exactly what CJ Industries delivers.
Precision Molds
Molds
Worldwide, sand casting is the most common form of metal casting. It is a proven, time-honored process, and we have specialized in sand casting at CJ Industries since 1985.
While it’s a traditional casting process largely executed as it has been through the ages, we have taken steps to enhance the precision and consistent quality we achieve for our customers. We also invest in premium elements of the process, such as the Petro Bond silica sand we use to achieve the highest-quality surface finishes.
In the sand casting process at CJ Industries, we create precise molds using our premium Petro Bond silica sand, and then fill the mold with molten aluminum to create the casting. Sand casting is cost-effective and highly flexible. We are able to produce castings of a wide variety of sizes and weights. We are also able to create precise molds for whatever components you need, whether simple in design or featuring complex cores and contours.
Highest Quality Surface Appearance
Competitive Advantage: Petro Bond Silica Sand
CJ Industries is one of the very few foundries in the Upper Midwest to use Petro Bond silica sand in the casting process. We choose to invest in this premium sand mixture so we can achieve the tightest tolerances and highest quality finishes on our products.
Petro Bond silica sand is a higher grade, finer grit sand. While industry standards commonly call for an 80 sift sand, our Petro Bond sand is a 110 sift. One key benefit our customers appreciate is significantly smoother exterior surfaces. Their components look better and may require less finish work, or none at all.
The superior results we achieve with Petro Bond silica sand make it worth the investment. We’re committed to it and our customers appreciate the clearly higher quality products we deliver.
ISO 9001:2015
Quality Policy
CJ Industries is committed to fulfilling customer and other applicable requirements by continuously using innovative technology, providing our customers with excellent services, and exceeding our customer’s demands. This will be accomplished through continually improving our services and internal processes and fulfilling our Quality Objectives as defined in our Quality System.
Competitive Advantage: ISO 9001:2015 Certification
Through annual internal and external audits, CJ Industries maintains its ISO 9001 certification to the Global Standard. Our Quality Management System allows us to uniformly utilize our manufacturing expertise, while continually making improvements where necessary.
This certification has not only ensured we retain our most demanding customers, but it has also opened new doors to serve many more industries.
Efficiency and Experience
Competitive Advantage: Efficiency and Experience
Our staff’s considerable collective years of experience allow us to achieve outstanding manufacturing efficiency and quality control.
Our enhanced efficiency helps keep manufacturing costs down, allowing us to deliver our superior products at fair prices.
The industry standard allows for 2% scrap, but at CJ Industries we typically produce only .5% scrap – or less.
And every piece we produce passes through multiple sets of experienced hands. Each piece is scrutinized by the trained eyes of multiple industry veterans. This allows us to verify quality, and if issues ever arise, we can address them immediately.
Straight-Forward, Efficient, and Flexible
Our Process
Our manufacturing process is straight-forward, efficient, and flexible.
Typically, the process begins with the client providing a sample or an e-file with engineering renderings of the component. Our in-house toolmaker works with the client to ensure we have a precise understanding of the project parameters.
We assess the manufacturing complexity and volume of materials required for production, then provide a price quote.
Once pricing and a delivery schedule are agreed on, we proceed to production. Whether it’s the first time we produce a component, or it’s one we have created for 30 years, our focus is on achieving the highest possible quality.
By using Bentonite silica sand, we achieve premium surface quality, and many castings are ready for finishing such as powder coating, painting, or anodizing.
After we remove castings from the gate (tooling), we can provide grinding, deburring, and shot or bead blasting to enhance the finishes. We also refer clients to outstanding machining operations that can provide products with further precision finishing.
Contact us today to discuss how we can provide you with premium quality components – on-budget and on-schedule.
Customers appreciate the clearly higher quality products we deliver
Here are a few examples
of what we can do for you
Click on a photo below to launch into a gallery
of just some of what we do for our clients.
What our customers are saying
CJ Industries as been an excellent supplier for all our casting needs for more than twenty years. We have had multiple ownership changes and CJ Industries has stuck with us through them all.
Chris, the owner, is great to work with always giving us fair pricing and quality parts delivered on time.
The foundry that we had worked with for years quietly sold out to another foundry and the new foundry could not fill orders in a timely basis and the product we were getting was very sub par and we were paying double what we were paying before.
We switched to CJ Foundry and we were in dire need of product and not only did they deliver our first order in record time, but the product they made for us was far superior to anything we had been getting.
I really appreciate Chris and his crew at CJ Foundry going above and beyond for us and making such a high quality product for us.
After many years of using CJ we are very happy with the quality of castings we receive on a regular basis. I wouldn’t hesitate to reach out for a quote.
C.J. Industries has been a long time and valued supplier. Chris Albertson and staff are professional, courteous and responsive to our needs. Our business transactions flow effortlessly and transparently with excellent on-time delivery and quality performance results month-over-month. We appreciate C.J. Industries, the product/services they provide along with helping us keep the end customer satisfied and coming back.
CJ Industries has been our cast aluminum vendor for 20 years. They offer great service and their castings are great, very high quality, and delivered on time. Wish all my venders were as good as CJ Industries.
Highly Skilled Artisans
Gallery Extra
A Step by Step Look at Our Process
Click on the photo to see our highly skilled artisans apply their craft.
