More mold prep this morning. Gregory scheduled time to pour the brass with Bob in the brass foundry at 12:30 pm. After some final running around finishing up the spruing, gating, venting, and mold washing, we made it on time. We got into position with the mold cart placed under the big ladle full of molten brass. The brass was poured and everything went well. The brass went into the pour cup and came up all the vents just like it’s supposed to. Everything pointed to a “good pour.” We went on to another part of the foundry and Bob hand-poured my small mold, then Bob and another worker simultaneously hand-poured the last mold -- and it too came through great.
I hustled outside to the yard with a sledgehammer and crow bar to break up the mold (while the brass was still hot) to prevent the sand from burning into the brass. Gregory dropped off the pour cart by forklift and I started to whack into it. As I started to break it up, I could start to tell that more detail was emerging than I thought would, so I felt relieved that my technique might work after all. There are, however, some issues that a second pour would improve on. If I improved the venting and sprues on a few select areas, it would work out better. I had a few shrinkage issues.
While wheeling the cart back to the studio, we caught Larry the Grinder’s eye. A few words about Larry. He’s a big guy who grinds the edges of sinks down to the right production finish level. Larry has been with Kohler for over 38 years and has a lot of experience. He stops by the artist’s area on occasion to chat and give his thoughts on how to plan on the right way to execute a project. We all rely on Larry’s advice and really admire his skill and work ethic.
Anyway, Larry called us over to see how our pour went and offered to cut the sprues and gates off and grind the excess down. We all went over to the big band saw in the cull area where he cut off the excess. Then we went back to his workstation and he ground down the excess material. Larry accomplished in 20 minutes what would have taken me a couple of hours.
Overall, everything looks pretty good so far on this project. We’ll see how good the fidelity is on the brass when Gregory and I take them over to polishing.
