Sometimes I post video of student shows in the Scottsdale Community College art building where I teach computer graphics classes. Last year, Ted Uran, a full-time faculty member who teaches sculpture, wondered why I didn’t come document the iron pour. And I suggested he tell me when the next one was (I never knew in advance).
So this year, Ted gave me plenty of notice and I showed up an hour before they expected to have pourable iron. I brought the hubby and we both bought scratch blocks for $10, and t-shirts for $15, because they help the sculpture students raise money for cool stuff they want to do. Several local schools pool resources and talent to pull this off – it looked like we had people from Arizona State and Northern Arizona Universities in addition to Scottsdale Community College folks. A whole bunch of people show up to see the students pour their iron, and in the darkening evening it’s really quite a show, all flame and sparks and glowing molten metal.
Anticipation ran high, and the supportive crowd burst into applause when the first ladle was charged. But of course, the audience doesn’t always understand what’s really going on, as you’ll see.
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Damn. That must have really sucked for them.
Not sure at what or why the people were clapping? They like seeing fire?
Very interested in seeing a successful pour!
Yeah, that was weird, David. The people were clapping because they thought the students had finally tapped the furnace properly and that the pour was rescued. I don’t think they realized that the second stream of metal wasn’t coming out the furnace spout, but rather from an accidental hole made by too much hammering.
I felt so bad for them, they worked so hard. But it all turns out happy in the end, I promise.
That sucks. Best of luck next pour.
Even though the pour didn’t work out (this time), the images of the fire, etc, were cool.
So did the bottom half, just completely fall out? Or burn away?…. regardless, that sucks…looking forward to todays!
I don’t think the bottom half completely fell out Heath, but I think at least part of the bottom furnace lining cracked, and once it cracked it burned through and dumped everything out. It was a bummer!
Now this is my idea of an adventure movie.
What happened at the end…
Once we realized that the spout was completely frozen and we were not going to have a successfu pour….
There is a trap door on the bottom of the furnace. We had to open it to empty the furnace so that the fuel and partially melted iron didnt all get stuck up in it.
Had the pour been a success, we would have finished the night by “dropping the bottom”.
Oh, wow! Ted visits my blog and answers questions! Sweet!
Thanks for the explanation – I had no idea there was a trap door at the bottom of the furnace but that makes total sense.