09-02-2013, 10:45 AM
I saw that Darren, it was quite a few years ago now, but I remember it well, Experimental archeology is all the rage here now. there's always one documentary or another recreating something. It's my kind of viewing, I'd rather be doing it but when you can't sometimes watching has to do.
Hello DA, from my metallurgical history lessons man has been doing this for more than 3000 years, If I'm not mistaken the iron age started in 1200BC in Europe and various other times depending on location. Curiously we were also taught that the Iron age ended in the seventh century AD, so... what were we making stuff out of between 800AD and the invention of plastic?
And as far as the "get off you &$$ and find some sand" goes, I can't agree more, At the steel foundry we just used to dig a bit out of the floor, and run it through the processor, as it had been a foundry for 80 years the floor was basically green sand to a depth of six feet on the casting floor, but it was nowhere near clean and I doubt that grain size and structure was particularly consistent, but still that foundry had cast Lathes and Milling machines, Ladles and test equipment, railway bogies and just about everything else, even ship propellers cast in Iron during WW2 due to the copper shortages.
Incidentally we used to use "Shell sand" for intricate patterns and it was set like a core using Sodium Silicate and CO2 although often it was simply rammed lightly and left for the weekend before being "Backed up with floor sand.
Occasionally we would dig further than the six feet and find the natural sand underneath, being that the whole place was built on a river bank. Also, given that the foundry site had been used as a copper smelter before the Steelworks was built in 1912 I'm guessing that the sand used for moulding had always just been the natural sand.
Apparently the Copper smelter and the first Blast furnaces used to tap the molten copper and iron straight into trenches dug into the natural sand to form pigs. so it seems a natural progression to use it to make more complex moulds out of it too.
Rick
Hello DA, from my metallurgical history lessons man has been doing this for more than 3000 years, If I'm not mistaken the iron age started in 1200BC in Europe and various other times depending on location. Curiously we were also taught that the Iron age ended in the seventh century AD, so... what were we making stuff out of between 800AD and the invention of plastic?
And as far as the "get off you &$$ and find some sand" goes, I can't agree more, At the steel foundry we just used to dig a bit out of the floor, and run it through the processor, as it had been a foundry for 80 years the floor was basically green sand to a depth of six feet on the casting floor, but it was nowhere near clean and I doubt that grain size and structure was particularly consistent, but still that foundry had cast Lathes and Milling machines, Ladles and test equipment, railway bogies and just about everything else, even ship propellers cast in Iron during WW2 due to the copper shortages.
Incidentally we used to use "Shell sand" for intricate patterns and it was set like a core using Sodium Silicate and CO2 although often it was simply rammed lightly and left for the weekend before being "Backed up with floor sand.
Occasionally we would dig further than the six feet and find the natural sand underneath, being that the whole place was built on a river bank. Also, given that the foundry site had been used as a copper smelter before the Steelworks was built in 1912 I'm guessing that the sand used for moulding had always just been the natural sand.
Apparently the Copper smelter and the first Blast furnaces used to tap the molten copper and iron straight into trenches dug into the natural sand to form pigs. so it seems a natural progression to use it to make more complex moulds out of it too.
Rick
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