TERRE HAUTE MALLEABLE INJURIES I wish I had photographs taken inside the old Malleable. Everyone was as dusty and sooty as a coal miner. The yellow-orange-red plume of molten iron stood out against a backdrop of everything else being covered in mounds of black dust and foundry sand. Iron is incredible dense and heavy and everything associated with handling foundry iron was back-breaking toil. It was a hard, HARD way to make a living. Everyone got burned by molten iron. During the heat, (pouring molds) it was nothing but zig-zagging through no mans land to keep from getting burned. Once the furnaces were tapped open, the rush was on to get several hundred molds poured that were in rows everywhere. Men were hand-carrying ladles of molten iron at a very quick pace to get the molds poured before the iron chilled. Bull ladles on overhead tracks poured larger molds. When the pouring started, your pulse went up because the place turned into a bee hive of activity and it all centered around pouring very hot and unpleasant molten iron. As men poured their molds, things happened that caused the plume of molten iron to miss the molds sprue hole and suddenly strike the ground which caused it to erupt into a large red-hot liquid splash that went back up into the air. In a very generalized way, it could be likened to a dud firework that went into the air and not exploding until in landed back on the ground. Your hands were full of ladle and while you were pouring your own molds, and this happened, all you could do was grimace and then see if you felt burning somewhere on your body or top of your head....... cont.......
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 19:05:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015