How I am wasting time

Of late my consumption of YouTube videos has been far too high, might I be addicted? Anyway as they say a problem shared is a problem halved, here are a couple of videos I found enjoyable.

Production of cylinder liners https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4ZkOME1oTc

Recondition an engine block https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGSREiVEuKY

Mind boggling, as all those Indian workshop videos are. I am sure that is a modified tandoori oven like they use to cook chapatis in the restaurants there. So simple it could be done in the backyard using a leaf-blower for draft.

But pouring molten cast iron while wearing sandals makes me shudder every time, as does working around those open belts and pulleys wearing those loose flowing "night-shirt" type clothes and baggy pants. As bad as the ubiquitous stamping presses with no safety guards to keep hands out of the impact zone as they work at full speed on piecework rates.

Molten iron is much like water, and it will run off without having a chance to burn, unless it goes into the top of your shoe or boot, in which case you have a serious problem.

The slightest amount of moisture will cause iron to explode out of the mold, and this happened to me one time, and I had iron strike my leather jacket, run down the arms, and into my gloves.

3rd degree burns on both hands, but nothing really to be concerned with; ie: no limbs were lost.

The bigger problem is radiant heat, mostly from IR.

If you look at 4:35 in the video, the radiant heat from the open furnace, and from the sides of the crucible are supremely hot, and will start to burn you in short order.

I guess the loose clothing act sort of as a heat shield.

I can speak from experience, standing that close to a crucible that big with no gear on is really amazing, and I am not sure really how they get away with it. The heat on the face is incredible.

And you can quickly burn your eyes with IR without shaded glasses. I guess they don't look at the crucible or open furnace, either that or get cataracts. I burned my eyes after one melting session without the proper eye protection.

The scoop-out ladle would not be very dangerous or difficult to handle, as long as you made sure it was super dry before dipping it in the crucible.

I will attach some photos of my iron experience.

The slightest drop of iron vaporizes the skin almost instantly, and creates a large burn zone around the contact area.

I pour aluminum without much protection. The main thing to protect are the eyes.

If you splash in the eyes, it is game-over.

.

Note: If you don't like burn photos, then read no further.

I preheated my ingot molds with a propane torch, but failed to get them up to perhaps 500-600 F (+) for a sufficient amount of time to completely drive off the surface moisture.

The molds looked completely dry, but looks can be deceiving.

These burns were caused by tiny droplets of molten iron.

One can hardly take one's gloves off fast enough when iron gets into them.

The initial burns did not look too bad on initial inspection, but the damage was more extensive.

"Curaid Silver Solution" is what works on burns, and saves a trip to the doc.

Oddly enough, there was no pain involved, since the nerve endings were vaporized.

In the end, it all fills back in with scar tissue. You can hardly see any evidence of it now.

Edited By PatJ on 02/05/2022 23:32:48

I use to get extraordinarily nervous before an iron pour, especially after these burns, but I finally got use to the heat and such, and now it is rather a routine thing to pour iron.

I do wear a lot of leathers, and I use a heat shield on the pouring shank.

Ah yes the ubiquitous safety sandals, the lack of PE makes me cringe. I saw one recently where a guy was welding and had a helper standing next to him, it brought back a painful memory. When I was young I did a holiday job in a small fabrication shop. Part of the job was to weld nuts on the ends of studs. I was the nut fitter and the welder was to my right. Woke up the next morning with sunburn on the right side of my face and arc eye. Looked like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters but worse.

Here are two more videos.

Repairing a crankshaft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUB7dUjFGIM

Making a crankshaft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsEIamdzsZs

I think the great thing about these videos is that they show clearly how things are done using basic tools.

Went on a visit to Port Talbot Steelworks in Wales in the early 60’s, it was mind blowing when we were in the area where they were discharging the steel, molten metal and sparks flying everywhere and the noise was horrendous. Certainly glad that I didn’t have to work there, great respect for those that did. Dave W

The closest I get is welding in flip-flops. The sparks roll off the top of your foot with minor pain. It's the ones that get caught between your toes and keep burning in and and in that get me doing the dance of the heebee jeebees.

As much as we shake our head at them, they are full of good ideas for doing everything with not very much in the way of gear, which is quite applicable to most home workshops. Some very innovative ideas among them. I have picked up some good tips from the Indian videos and also a Vietnamese machinist and an Indonesian machinist who post on YouTube regularly.

While on holiday in Cornwall i visited Iron Brothers in Wadebridge a couple of years ago to draw around their patterns for a garrison cannon carriage. They were very nice helpful people and we got chatting about my amateur castings. The governor then took me to see a very large iron pour of a keel and some other bits they were doing. It was quite a spectacle and I was very lucky to be on the shop floor standing on a thick bed of sand watching it all going on from a safe distance. Then it was back to the car where the wife and kids were waiting to get down the beach.

why don't you tuck your glove inside your sleeve?

Dave been there got the tea shirt worked at Bilston steelworks if the melting shop impressed you shame you couldn't have seen a blast furnace tapping out much the same but with thick yellow sulfur laden fumes

H

Spent 9 months working at a big Steel works, open hearth furnaces, 12 of them. The 13th one was in another county and not fired up because of the additional taxes. 300 tons capacity each I believe. Fed with 50 ton ladles and scrap. Most impressive for a 18 year old out of school. Closed down and I moved. Would I go back? I could not get there fast enough. Loved it, everything else has been boring.

In 1960, I worked one summer for a small Iron foundry in Northern Illinois, USA. They would tap the cupola (iron) in the afternoon to pour the days mould production. I was a helper and carried the Iron to the moulder who would pour their own moulds. No safety equipment in those days. There were a couple of "Old hands" who liked to impress anyone new on the floor (salesmen, visitors, etc.) by standing next to the cupola and using their finger to flick beads of molten iron across the floor from the stream of iron flowing from the tapped cupola into the crucible. One would ask the other one if it was hot enough and his answer would be Just a second, I will check it as he flicked the molten iron with his finger. Needless to say, I was impressed! Rick

Would I go back? I could not get there fast enough. Loved it, everything else has been boring. fully understand where your coming from, although i worked in all departments 'Elizabeth' was something else

While technically that is a good idea, from a practical standpoint, one has to pull the gloves on and off frequently during a melt for various reasons, and getting the glove cuff tucked under the jacket is not easy.

There are a number of local art-iron groups in the states, and one below is local, and so I have quite a few photos from that one. The art iron groups have designated task-individuals, and depending on your task, that determines whether your gloves go outside, or get tucked inside.

You can see in one of the photos below that the tapper-person has his gloves tucked inside the jacket, and those handling the pouring ladle/shank have their gloves outside the jacket.

I forget the exact idea behind the tuck for each position, but they do consider it.

Approximately half the individuals who do art-iron work are women, and they run the crucible and tap it with impunity. The person in the first photo to the left of the guy in the blue jacket is the lead casting/foundry/cupola-operating women.

They don't even blink when they catch the grass on fire.  They have folks with shovels and sand whose only task is to put out grass fires.  You can't have any water anywhere near molten iron, and so all inadvertent fires are put out with dry sand.

It is all very well orchestrated, with safety meetings before and after every pour, and a plan of action and action-person for every task and for every safety possibility.

You have to go through training to even be allowed "on the floor" as they call it.

They even have "watchers" who overlook the process, and make sure everyone stays in the allocated zone, and does their designated task; otherwise you have people falling over each other.

Some pours have in excess of 40 people on the floor.

Edited By PatJ on 05/05/2022 07:18:15

I bet Your furnacws were not tapped like Ours was. A rolled cardboard 3-4" round had a ceramic blunt arrow head on the end. Wires came out the back, the tube had 1/4 (or so) stick of dynamite inside. The second helper dropped the tube in the drain chute stepped in back of a sheet metal tin wll and hooked up the wires quickly and the charge went off with a loud boom. When I first asked what happened Someone said to look out on the other side of the pit (it was dark) and there was a sheet tin wall all beat up looking. They said that was where the card board tubes hit to stop them. It was 300-400 feet away.

I'd bet the man in charge was Richard Head

H

These guys in Pakistan casting truck brake drums are master craftsmen, despite the primitive and often rather appalling working conditions. Full respect.

I just watched another video I thought worth sharing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk4RND5AbRc

Some wonderful lateral thinking, the poppet valves and rocker arms are a masterpiece of bits bucket construction.