THE SLOSS 2009 IRON POUR |
| Every two years the Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, AL holds a national educational Iron Pour Conference. Alison’s Uncle Carl is an art professor at the University Of Southern Carolina and sculpts primarily in cast iron. He and his students brought their own furnace and participated in the event. Ali and I attended the last couple days in the first week of April, 2009. It was easily one of the most spectacular events I have ever had the privilege to attend. |
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| I just wanted to show off some of the amazing things I saw this weekend. The "good" pics are forthcoming. For now... |
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The Sloss Furnaces is a National Monument. I could go on about its' history, lineage, and current state as an artistic mecca for metalwork artists around the world, but you can read all about that here
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| You are looking at an incredibly long (and tall) "shed" behind the furnaces. This is where the majority of the conference-goers have set up their furnaces, built and assembled their molds, and held workshops and lectures all week. Carl's furnace is NOT inside the shed. We found out that the reasons behind this are because Carl is a bit of a wild card. He pours "reaction molds" (more on them later) and is generally a bit more rogue-ish when it comes to working with molten iron. |
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| This is Carl. He is my Uncle-in-law, and an incredibly affible person. I could spend a week locked in a warehouse with the guy and as long as we had enough beer I'd never get sick of talking to him. Alison had a perfect observation about Carl after we drove home Sunday: "Carl is always excited and happy about what he is doing. Even if he is angry, he is animated about it." He just loves doing everything, even breathing. Carl is A-Ok in my book. |
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| Carl and my father-in-law, Bill. They are brothers, and they shop at the same Beard Emporium. Bill looks forward to these conferences about as much as Carl does. |
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| Carl giving a lecture. His furnace is the orange thing behind him. As you might expect, EVERYTHING is talked about in fine detail before any actual iron gets poured. This has a lot to do with the fact that the iron they will be pouring is thousands of degrees and has been known to kill people who do something stupid while it is flowing. |
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| Carl squats in front of his furnace. The furnace was built by him and his team years ago and christened 'Fe Faru'. The Periodic Table Of Elements lists Iron as 'Fe'. According to Carl, 'Faru' is Swahili for Rhino. So what you are looking at here is an amazing creation that they call 'the Iron Rhino'. |
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| Fe Faru was primed with coke all morning. Iron pours work best with coke. Coke is coal that has been baked and is much lower in sulphur content than coal. Iron reacts badly when sulphur is involved. I feel like I am writing a paper for my 11th grade chemistry class. |
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Iron scraps are being poured into the furnace in regular intervals. The scraps were busted and brought over to the furnace from a large scrap pile several yards away. All day long students and artists are smashing up enormous chunks of pipe, disc brakes, support beams and what-have-you. They planned on pouring thousands of pounds of iron.
The iron is poured in on top of the coke, then coke goes on top of the iron, and so on... this takes hours... |
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| An open hole at the bottom of the furnace. When the iron starts to run, it comes out of this spout. The resemblence to its' master is uncanny, no? |
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| ...and eventually Fe Faru begins to indicate that the temperature is right... |
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