Obsessed with the metalcasting life.After reading the June 2005 MODERN CASTING editorial, "Just a Little Obsessed ob·sess v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es v.tr. To preoccupy the mind of excessively. v.intr. ," I am reassured that I am in the right place for metalcasters. I sometimes thought I was the only one who felt that way. Just sitting down to "write" this has brought back long forgotten memories. When I was about 8, at Christmas I got a kit to make "tin" soldiers. There was a permanent metal mold in halves See In half with a clamp clamp (klamp) a surgical device for compressing a part or structure. rubber dam clamp a metallic device used to retain the dam on a tooth. clamp n. to hold them together, a metal crucible crucible, vessel in which a substance is heated to a high temperature, as for fusing or calcining. The necessary properties of a crucible are that it maintain its mechanical strength and rigidity at high temperatures and that it not react in an undesirable way with and some lead ingots. We had a coal-fired furnace furnace, enclosed space for the burning of fuel. There are many kinds of furnaces, the type depending upon the fuel and the use to which the heat produced within it is put. Most familiar are the furnaces used in the heating of buildings. in the basement, so my father and I melted the lead over the coals and poured it into the molds. I had a lot of fun playing with the soldiers. If one got bent in too active a battle, I only had to melt him down and re-cast him. When I was 15, my high school science class toured a local "metal works." The tour was conducted by a classmate's father, who was the general manager and a metallurgical met·al·lur·gy n. 1. The science that deals with procedures used in extracting metals from their ores, purifying and alloying metals, and creating useful objects from metals. 2. engineer. After chatting with him a couple of times about it, I decided that's what I wanted to be. I went on to Drexel (now University, then Institute of Technology) majoring in MetEng and recall reading one account of a college lecture on Material Science. The professor obviously was not a metalcaster. A student asked him about a casting, and the professor said a casting was a gas-hole, surrounded by slag and a little bit of metal held together by dross inclusions. He said castings were medieval and not worth talking about, much less pursuing as a career, believing that parts fabricated fab·ri·cate tr.v. fab·ri·cat·ed, fab·ri·cat·ing, fab·ri·cates 1. To make; create. 2. To construct by combining or assembling diverse, typically standardized parts: from (his idea of perfect) steel, were the only way to advance civilization. Drexel had a mandatory cooperative education
The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view program. During a five-year course of study, engineers worked in an industry related to their major at a school-assigned job for a total of 18 months in three- or six-month increments. I was assigned to the research & development department of an iron pipe foundry in 1964, followed by terms in quality control, maintenance and engineering. After college, I went back to work for the same company full time and have been there ever since. I've made a living at something I enjoy doing. I've learned a lot along the way, most of which is not taught in schools anywhere. With the present-day thinking that it is necessary to change jobs (if not careers) every five years, people look at me like I have three heads when I say I've been doing this for more than 40 years. And with all of this time in a foundry, I still don't get tired seeing molten iron run. I guess it just gets in your blood. I never thought of it that way before, but I guess this kind of means I've been a metalcaster since I was 8. G. A. Craft Sales Engineer--Special Products Dept. U. S. Pipe and Foundry Company Inc. Union City, Calif. |
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