Talked to a retired pattern maker at the diner and he changed my whole view on sand

I was having coffee at the Mill Street Diner last week and got talking to an old guy named Frank. He worked as a pattern maker for 40 years at the old Acme Foundry before it closed. I was complaining about how our new silica sand mix from the big supplier was giving us more surface defects than usual. He just shook his head and said, 'You boys treat sand like dirt. It's not dirt. It's the mold.' He went on for ten minutes about how his crew used to test the clay content by feel and adjust the moisture by eye, batch by batch. We just order a truckload and hope for the best. It hit different because he wasn't just talking about old ways, he was saying we gave up control for convenience. How many of you still do your own sand tests, or do you just trust the spec sheet?

3 comments

3 Comments

jackson.matthew10d ago

Spec sheets are just someone else's guess.

-1

david5625d ago

My last car's spec sheet guessed wrong on the gas mileage.

joseph_ellis8510d ago

Honestly, you're so right about that @jackson.matthew. Feels like they're just making it up sometimes.