Men (and Women) of Iron

So the other day I got a chance to get behind the scenes at a big foundry that was doing an iron casting/pour. This is definitely not something I get to witness every day. Being the nice folks that they are, I was able to make a couple 4" scratch blocks just for fun which they then poured for me. On the downside, it seems I brought my good luck with me (and by "good" I mean "bad") because a problem cropped up during the pour that has never been seen before (more on this below).

A big thanks to everyone at the Sculpture Academy for letting me behind the scenes to shoot this event!
.....
.....
Arriving at the foundry I saw these piles of scrap iron, salvaged from things like old bath tubs. These piles are bucket-sized for easy loading into the cupola (the big furnace thing where the iron is melted).
.....

.....
.....
.....
Here are some of the sand molds ready to be filled.
.....

.....
.....
.....
Here the cupola is being warmed up... The workers add things like sand and coke (the fuel, not the soft drink). As things heat up, all sorts of science-y stuff starts happening inside that results in clean molten iron.
.....

.....
.....
.....
Pretty sure this is more coke being added. They really seem to like their coke around here...
.....

.....
.....
.....
The cute blonde mugging for the camera is Ariel, she's one of the team leaders. At this point things are really heating up and we're about ready to start pouring but a problem rears its ugly head!!
.....

.....
.....
.....
A leak has opened in the bottom of the cupola and molten iron is leaking out. Not good. The iron is supposed to pour out of the spout that has been plugged with some sort of Bondo-like material. This leak is causing a bit of a buzz as no one seems sure what to do about it.
.....

.....
.....
.....
A few things are tried but then someone pulls this out their hat! A steel piano stool has been liberated from parts unknown. The plan is to put the stool, with a cinder block supporting a bar-mold, under the leak and then raise the seat up against the bottom of the cupola to staunch the flow... Brilliant!! Except it turns out to be a spectacular failure.
.....

.....
.....
.....
The final solution is, essentially, to say, "Screw it!" and start filling from the leak. Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
.....

.....
.....
.....
From here we start filling scratch blocks...
.....

.....
.....
.....
At some point a leak forms in the crucible which is also not supposed to happen... Still, it made for a great shot.
.....

.....
.....
.....
This is what happens when you sand mold fails... Don't let this happen to you!
.....

.....
.....
.....
This is another type of mold... I think it's called an investment casting/mold. I get confused over the different types of molds, but hey... I'm just the photographer.
.....

.....
.....
.....
Sometimes it feels like pretty much everything is on fire. All at once. I mean, there's so much fire at this place it's crazy.
.....

.....
.....
.....
Some more shots I got...
.....

.....
.....
.....

.....
.....
.....

.....
.....
.....

.....
.....
.....
finally, when all the molds have been poured, the bottom of the cupola is opened and everything left inside spills out out on the ground where it's hosed down and cooled off. Some of the left over coke and scrap iron will be re-used in the next pour.
.....

.....

I used to work in a Nickel Smelter so this is on the small scale of what we used to do

That bondo stuff is actually a clay blend made into a triangular plug we used similar to plug the holes

And yep our pots and furnace developed leaks aswell dropping tonnes of moulten nickel, we also used coke and flux (quartz) in the process to remove the iron from the nickel.

Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter | | MiningLink - The largest & most visited mining website in Australia

There are some excellent shots in there...very cool!

Cool to see and would be awesome to be there in person.

Very cool opportunity. Nice series.

That is very cool! and very good shots of all that!! I enjoyed just looking at that!

Thanks everyone...

...

nikonpup said:

i worked in boeing's foundry for a time in the early 70's, the operation you shot to me looks like someones part time backyard operation.
They all look to clean for foundry workers.
What are the scratch block they made for you? What else where the making?
I do like like the shots you posted.

Click to expand...

It's a sculpture academy, nothing industrial. I referred to them as "workers" for lack of a better word but this is not a full time job for anyone there. Iron pours happen three or four times a year I'm told. Some of the people you see are artists, some are students, some I think were volunteering; I don't really know all the details but they pour a lot of bronze from the looks of things. I saw a LOT of cast bronze while there and a smaller amount of aluminum.

I don't know what, specifically, was being poured while I was there because the molds weren't broken open before I left.

As for the scratch blocks, they provided them "blank" for Jessica and I, so we each carved one for ourselves to keep. She plays World of Warcraft (Horde) and I'm an armchair Egyptologist so hers is on the left, mine on the right. The molds appear upside down because I had to stand on the far side of where the pouring was happening. They're shown right side up in the second pic:
....


.....
Once completed I snapped a shot with my cell phone but one of my techs is going to grind off some flash and possibly sand blast one, or both of them so they're currently in his hands. Here's how the finished product looked when we brought them home (crummy cell phone pic):
.....

Great series of shots.

Awesome shots! They do ferrous casting where I teach blacksmithing (Salem Art Works), but I've never been able to see it because I'm busy teaching, lol. One of these days, when they have a weekend pour, I'll make a special trip to SAW specifically to take pictures of the pour.