Tour at the Furnace

 

 

I always had a fascination with the furnace so when I saw that there was going to be a tour I knew I had to be the first in line! Ok, not the first. That's too early, I don't function in the morning. But I set out to be there at 11ish. I got there at around 11:20 and got scheduled to go in with the 12:00 group.

 

That gave me some time to walk around the Art and Industry Salon and take my time reading labels and stuff. I spent most of the time in the yard since last time I mostly stayed inside. I even got to catch up with some friends and meet a few new friendly people. So far so good.

  

 

 

I call this one "The Two Towers"

And then there was a CLANG and a big cloud of dust. Aside from giving everyone a little bit of a heart attack this thing put a break in the schedule. I don't know what happend, but as an educated guess, after a lifetime of being told by my dad and grandad how all of the industry in town works, I think a casting frame fell. From what I understand, when they cast things they use these big metal frames filled with sand that has been baked and solidified. After the pieces are cast, they are taken out and the frames are set on a shaker that will make the sand fall off. That thing is loud! I used to do Sunday school (on Fridays lol) at the church just next to it and when that thing started shaking everyone just had to leave. Way to loud and way to dusty to hang around. According to my dad, those frames are stacked on top of eachother and sometimes they just fall without being shaken - like a huge game of jenga. So judging by the dust cloud rising from above where the shaker is and the really loud clang that's probably what happend.

This didn't just delay the tour, but it shortened it to just the furnace and the continous casting department. I'm guessing because the rest of it was covered in sand and hazardous to walk though.

 

Mandatory mirror selfie as we waited for the all clear for the tour. At this point it was well after 12:30.

And we were finally off! they gave us helmets and coats - mine was size 56 and went down to my ankles. But hey it was kinda random and there were now two groups entering at the same time so I didn't complain.

Obviously it wasn't allowed to take pictures except in the furnace area so there aren't any impressive molten iron pictures. But we did get to see a big crucible being poured and red hot steel tubes being extruded. I also found out why you don't work there wearing sneakers. I could feel the heat of the cement through the soles of my shoes.

It was worth the wait! Besides, there's no better place to wait around than in a museum. Kinda hard to get bored there.

A stand out feature I wanna mention cause I really love is that aside from normal flyers they printed a whole newspaper, on newspapper paper, with articles about the events but also history and documentation. I didn't get to read through all of it yet but I will. I wish more events would do this. I'd certainly collect a small archive of event newspapers.

I wanna do a thank you to the organisers paragraph but theres still things I'm gonna participate in and I'll just sound like a broken record. I'll do it after it's all said an done, but if any of you read this: you're awesome! keep up the good work!