My buddy Ron had been telling me to come over and check out his hot rod stuff for a while. I knew he's got lots of gearhead goodies collected over the past 30 years like old speed catalogs, 50s car show programs, and vintage racing annuals. When I fi... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
I'm really looking forward to seeing more pics. And for some reason, I feel the urge to buy some shoes... Damn that not-so-subliminal advertising.
Hey Jive Bomber, thanks so much for sharing. As a youngster, growing up in Cleveland, my Dad took me to many machine shops and "specialty pattern shops". Granted they may have been making patterns for a Hoover vacuum cleaner, but it was no less amazing to see this block of wood, that was created to make a part. Still some of these floating around his workshop. Don't think there are any pattern shops left in Cleveland. What a lost art. JT
Thank goodness that stuff was saved! Casting patterns made to "old fashioned way" are really beautiful example of true functional ART! Back in the late '60's I had the opportunity to spend some time in the pattern shop at the Chevrolet Tonawanda engine foundry. One of the pattern-makers showed me the dusty patterns for an experimental set of tuned long tube 409 headers. The image is still clear in my mind... Wonder what ever happened to them...
As a point of clarification, what your buddy has are patterns and coreboxes, not molds. Patterns are used to make the molds and coreboxes are used to make the cores that create internal cavities in castings (the cores are set inside the mold before it is closed).
This was on dispaly at Don Orosco shop when I toured with the Goodguys during speedweeks a couple of years ago. Pretty cool if 'ya ask me...
I am a retired wood patternmaker and that was a great find!! The good thing about this is you have the patterns and core boxes you can go in business making castings. Just find a foundry that will break off from big production jobs to pour your castings. I know of a place in town here in Muskegon, Mich. that will if there is nothing out your way. I am sure you will need some repair on these old patterns etc. too. Old hand made patterns from drawings with shrink and finish added are almost a thing of the past with all the CAD data and CNC machines of today. They are a thing of beauty to us gear heads. If you never use them clean them up and give them a coat of clear as they are a work of art. GM
I've only had a few short visits to any pattern shops so I'm going to take a risk and ask this question here. Once a pattern is ready for use how is it finished? Some of the examples I really seeing look as though they were treated with a glossy coating I would have called varnish. It seems to me the various binders used in casting sand would penetrate untreated wood.
Fantastic thread - I'm really looking forward to the next set of pictures. Please don't hold back - show all your photos.
Holy moly, I need to go hang out around that foundry sometime. I knew it was a very old company but never knew they had done such cool stuff. But they are still kicking some crazy stuff out over there. Whenever I drive by, they always seem to be cranking away. I've always wondered why they weren't just bought up long ago, profits drained and the jobs sent overseas like so many others. Hope they can stay independent and stick around and keep at it. But I do wish they knew better than to just toss out important history like that though. To them is probably just old worthless stuff taking up space. Makes you wonder what else they have over there waiting to be tossed. Maybe I should go and ask.
This is correct. The wood had to be sealed because the molding sand with a little bentonite clay has moisture in it to stick together. Old finishes were orange peal shellac "Clear" and for the core prints you would mix lamp black powder into the shellac for a black color. If you look above, in boldventures pictures, the cylinder block pattern has some dusting on the lower half of the pattern, this is a release agent so the sand would not stick to. Cleaning this off and giving it a coat of clear would not hurt the value of it as the top half had been cleaned off already. We would use clear lacqure as it dried faster and was a tougher finish than shellac. When I was an apprentice Patternmaker over 38 years ago, we cleaned out the garage and threw out many old patterns. I kept the Hudson Hornet name plac and it is around here some place. The second run of Halibrand wheel models are probably still there along with the 1st patterns of the Viper V-10 block which I helped make. That was sad as the engineers used the truck block and made it out of aluminum and did not beef it up at all.
Great find/rescue! Weather your pal uses these for re-pops or just preserves them for posterity, an important part of "our" history hes been saved.
I Shutter in my boots at the shear thinking of what it would cost these days to cast that stuff up. You could do it on the cheap by sending it overseas but then the thought of would you ever see the stuff again would loom. Great stuff and if you have ever been to the Walnut Man's Spread in Stockton Ca you can see almost all the stuff already made up in the flesh. Hind sight or not wish I would have grabs allot of that stuff back in the 60s. The G Man
Would that be Tri-State Aluminum castings foundry??? I used to work for the owner that also has a machine shop in Farmington Hills Michigan. Line Precision Inc.
yeah no kidding! **** i know i wouldnt be able to control myself. id be out there with a box of green sand melting down some toyota blocks lol
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