A retired guy at the scrap yard changed how I look at old patterns

I was at the scrap yard in Toledo last month, picking through some old steel for a job. This older guy, maybe in his 70s, was there with his grandson. He saw me looking at a big, rusted gear and just said, 'That's from a 1947 Cleveland punch press. You can tell by the tooth profile.' He was right, I checked the stamp later. We got to talking, and he told me he ran a foundry floor for forty years. He said the thing he missed most wasn't the big pours, but the sound of a perfect mold being shaken out. 'It had a ring to it, like a bell. You don't hear that with sand reclamation systems.' It was such a small detail, but it stuck with me. Made me pay more attention to the sounds on our own line. Do any of the older hands here have a specific sound or feel from the old days that's just gone now?

4 comments

4 Comments

grace_gonzalez4611d ago

Remember the smell of hot cutting oil?

christopherwilson10d ago

Was it really that memorable, grace_gonzalez46?

cameronn622d ago

What smell? My nose quit years ago.

williamb292d ago

That bell sound thing is kinda romanticized. Most foundry noise was just painful ringing in your ears for hours.