A big day at the foundary

For those of you following this blog from the beginning, you may remember a post about the foundary.  We contracted them to do the stairs, railings, and a metal catwalk which will together will make one of the central features of TerraPlana.

Yesterday, we went out to the foundry to watch while they poured some of our pieces.

That's our walkway heated to 1500°! We got to watch the whole process from start to finish.

First, they start with a mold:

On the mold, they pack some special sticky sand supper tight so that the sand remembers the molds shape, producing a negative of the same mold:

Then they spray it with something and light it on fire. Probably this is done to burn off impurities.  Then again, maybe it's just to look cool and play with fire, either way, it worked:

After that, they cover it with a block of sand that contains some holes to pour in the metal. All the time that this is going on, they are cooking scrap metal in a huge furnace:

They told us that the metal melts at around 1200° but to make sure it is liquid enough, they continue heating it to about 1500°. When it's hot enough, they tip the furnace into a cistern, and then pour it into the mold:

Once it cools, they shake off the sand and lift out the final piece:

And that's how a pile of scrap metal becomes a walkway in a bar. Of course, it was incredibly cool to watch this process first hand. We can't wait to see the ironwork installed in the bar, but I will never forget seeing it in liquid form!  Thanks to everyone at CIF!

And now, for some videos:

More Time Lapse

I really wish we had a completed bar instead of a ever longer video, but here it is anyway:

This week, the crane was dismounted and removed. That is good news because there's a lot of work to be done in the garden and the crane had been obstructing progress there. Some of the work in the garden is demolition and while they were dismounting the crane, they gave us a little help with one of the walls:

The work on the house can now mostly be categorized as 'finishing'.  The main items left are painting, tiling and installing fixtures. It won't be done this month, but it's nice to feel that we are starting down the final stretch.

Meanwhile back at the farm, the peppers are coming along nicely.  It's been a little cold out the last few days, but they are ready to go outside as soon as the normal April weather returns.  I got 6 varieties going. Sadly, that does not include the Habaneros or Penis Peppers.  I'm still trying to germinate a few seeds, but it's probably time to give up hope.