3 Days late for Denver

Another busy and frustrating day. Donnie & Forrest stayed up half the night putting a windbox and four tuyeres onto the machine, and it still doesn't work right. After the second try of the day, Donnie just looked over at me and said,"Lets build a trashcan." For those of you who don't have a history with us, I built the first "Oscar the Grouch" cupolette (so named by Wayne Potratz) at the 2nd International cast iron conference at Sloss furnaces in Birmingham, AL in 1992. It was my intention to make something that anyone could make and run by themselves if necessary. And it works, better some times and not so better others. We Built another version at the 5th Int'l Conference in Iron Bridge, UK in 2006. I ran the original machine in NYC a couple weeks back and it made hot metal right on schedule. Unfortunately, I left it with the Texas Firehouse for their use in future.

So, we will not be pouring in Denver, we'll be building a furnace that we will pour with in Wiseman. For all those folks in Alaska who have never seen such a thing, it will be interesting. The folks in Wiseman probably don't know what to expect and will most likely be surprised by this 20 gallon trashcan that will melt iron.

But now its on to Denver and the Western Cast Iron Art Conference (wciac.org, not wicca, I was mistaken). Donnie and I are still on the metallurgical panel, I think, and fortunately its the very last panel of the conference, so we have time to get there. Leaving tomorrow (Thursday) and driving straight through. Not the original plan, but one must be flexible. My father would have said that it keeps one young, and it worked for him.

So, til we're on the road and posting from a Starbuck's hot spot, keep you tuyeres clean.
Butch