Wednesday 6 July 2011

6th July - 1st pour

Instead of my usual loquatious ramblings, my blog is going to have to be a little on the short side as there never seems to be enough time in the day to put aside to write as much as I'd like.

First off, as the title suggests, today was the first firing of the 2011 Trails study programme. A little over 800lbs of iron hit the moulds in scorching Indiana heat. From fire-up to pour took a little under two hours. I currently feel like a boil-in-the-bag piece of cheap meat, having acted as skimmer and dead-end on three of the four pours. That wasn't exactly the plan during the pre-brief, but necessity was the mother of improvisation - as the furnace they use here melts the metal so quickly, a few of the crew were caught out. Pouring iron always scares me to be honest - and its always a relief when everything is over and done and you can look back and reflect (and quaff a well deserved cold beer). The others are off cooling in the Masse family pool, making sweaty foundry crew soup whilst I type this!

An artist called Mary was the creator of todays moulds - as soon as I have pictures to show you of the pieces she cast, I'll add them here.

Right - time for me to cool off to as I ought to get cracking with my own pieces, though to be honest, I might snatch a sneaky forty winks first!

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