Alan, I enjoy seeing your excellent work,it takes me back since it's been > 36 years when I was in H.S. foundry class.
where I poured Aluminum, Brass, and Iron in silica sand.

I was in the class for three years, and I managed to make a lot of stuff, but sadly
all of it, my plaques, pots and pans, bookends, pier joints, hurricane lamps, door knockers, peace symbols, weather vanes, house signs, crucifix....are all gone.....


Why three years??....well,..... it was easier than Electric Shop, where I regularly burned up almost everything. [Linked Image]

oh the irony as an electrician in a foundry
these past few months heh??


You mentioned your thumprint , and IRC
Styrofoam being used as a pattern experimentally at that time. you can imagine what the rough casting looked like from foam that "looked" smooth

I did get to use it to make some truly heavy Brass apple paperweights for the teachers.....sort of a brown nose idea at the time... anything for a better grade huh?

anyway my magnum opus was a Brass cup, saucer, & spoon .... with the spoon inside the cup....., in one pour.
I had to make (3) three part molds.. two were total wrecks, because the cores that I had baked gave way and ruined them.

The last casting was near perfect, but I still had to sandblast, deburr, file, and buff to a high polish... and lacquer coat it. This took a very long time ....but......

I was not allowed to keep it !

..... I was "asked" to leave it for the display case outside the offices of the principal. My "final" grade was dependent on my thoughtful consideration

needless to say, I was really ticked off in 1970, and since mentioning it here, am furious all over again.



[This message has been edited by togol (edited 11-12-2006).]

Tom