Monday, December 5, 2011

Finals Week

So yesterday was iron pour training. I got my mold all set up and then I was given the task of breaking more some iron.

So I got my sledge hammer thing--the kind that you just sort of drop / slam onto the ground instead of swinging it at things--and broke myself up some radiator pieces. And also worked my arms and obliques.


With a few other people we managed to get 3 piles, but they never ended up being used in the pour, so that's awesome.



Anyway, when it was time to pour, we all got suited up and assigned positions. The boys all got to go first, so they got all the molds except one, and so two other girls and I were left with the last mold.

I was given 'dead end,' which I wanted, and the other girls were given shovels.

If you watch the video I posted in my last blog [here] of the advanced students pouring, I had the job of to holding the bucket, but I'm on the side with the one handle. The 'live end' has two handles so she can angle it and pour the iron out.

Anyway, so they're pouring the iron into the bucket while we hold it, and it's very heavy as it's being filled with lava and blobs of it are splashing and bouncing off of our leathers, but we carry it over to the skimmer to scrape out all the crap that floats to the top.

Anyway as we're picking the bucket back up, we weren't entirely synced and I didn't expect it to be quite as heavy as it was so slipped slightly and one of the professors came in to help me carry it a ways.

But once we got to the mold it was easy. There was smoke everywhere, but I could just rest my elbow on my leg while the live end filled the mold. We then dumped out the excess, set it back on the stand and that was it!

The iron pour this Saturday is going to be a lot more intense because we will have many many molds and the furnace will be constantly getting hotter while we're carrying heavy things in our leathers, that it will basically just be work.

I also need to get my last mold put together before then. Don't know when that's going to happen...


In other metal news, my box showed up on the Metalsmithing poster! Yay me.



Other than that I'm pretty much just working on my wood sculpture.

I have since taken a die grinder to it, so it's slightly slimmer and smoother, but not by much. I have a whole lot left to do.




My metals project is also due next Monday, but it's still just a bowl at this point.

My legs are really sore right now :P




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