buyCASTINGS.com has teamed with the South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA) to develop, deploy and integrate a fully deployable TacFab, the Tactical Metal Fabrication System. The project team includes SCRA, SeaBox, Ajax Tocco, and Thermo Fisher. Together with the Army's operational Rapid Manufacturing System (RMS), TacFab will support significant and synergistic capability to support the warfighter in theater with the rapid re-supply of a broad spectrum of cast and machined parts for Army combat and combat support units. It is anticipated that the contract will be awarded to SCRA within the next 60 to 90 days.

TacFab will augment the RMS by providing the means to produce on-demand cast parts to duplicate original parts. This new resource would be deployed to the same locations as RMS so that when a warfighter brings a defective or worn or broken part to RMS and it is determined to be a cast part, the mobile metal casting asset could be immediately tasked to make the required casting. Once made, the casting would then be final machined back in RMS.

Additionally, TacFab will support Army Continental United States (CONUS) RESET activities at various locations with a cast part production capability. The system will have dual-use applications as well, particularly in the U.S. energy sector (e.g., utilities), municipalities (e.g., water handling, treatment, and delivery systems) and in Homeland Security for disaster response support.

We have targeted several military parts for demonstration at the TacFab Demo Facility (TDF) in Dayton, Ohio. As shown below, the steel cast part such as this bracket which goes in the controller for the HumVee Gun Turret . This critical part may arrive at the TacFab deployment site in-theater broken or bent. Since this may be causing the machine gun turret to be down hence the entire weapon system to be inoperable, this is an urgent repair/replacement need in battle. TacFab would reverse engineer this cast steel bracket, cast it and deploy it over night.

HumVee with Gun Turret, The Gun Turret Controller
Assembly & the Cast Steel Bracket Part

The operational scenario is for a broken Cast Steel Bracket to be a critical need item for one or more HumVee weapon systems. The TacFab mission is to scan the broken part(s), generate CAD data to include an STL file, use the data as input to the Mold Build Machine, make the mold, cast the part(s) and deliver the part to the warfighter in hours or days vs. weeks or months for the conventional part re-supply system.