Foundry Rebuild + Running, May 2006

The May day event held from 28th April to 1st May 2006, inclusive, is one of the smaller but present events of the year. May day is celebrated with lots of pomp and circumstance, the felling of last years May pole, the erection of a new one, lots of singing, dancing and plays.

Main works concluded during May Day event

Using the Friday afternoon and Saturday morning before the gates were opened the foundry rebuild was completed. The furnace was disassembled, the wall taken to it's full height, the furnace rebuilt a little higher and narrower than previously and lined with fire cement. The pouring trough from the furnace was also removed.

Making the furnace taller and narrower makes it more difficult to use from a practical standpoint. This change does mean that it is easier to attain higher temperatures as the fire is more concentrated.

In addition, an open fire area was created nearby. This is for the melting of lead / pewter, the warming and/or baking of moulds and any number of other things that a heat source is required. There are two main forms of energy available on the manor, man power and heat. With no running water, windmills, engines, electricity etc. fire tend to be much in demand for a huge number of uses.

Castings done during May day

Despite the fact that May day should really be a holiday the foundry was in full swing. Robert Mot (myself) was ably assisted by Hob who is normally a builder but was available to assist the foundry for this event.

Lead

We started the event by converting some scrap lead, that was forever in the way, into ingots. We were then commissioned to manufacture some ships sounding weights of which we made 2 using a crucible as a mould. Various other lead items were made including spindles for the wool shed and the occasional hand impression from the younger visitors.

Bronze

Despite the foundry only just having been rebuilt and the mortar still being wet we did cast Bronze during the event. Running up the furnace each morning slowly for a couple of hours then going for a casting.

Initially we cast a buckle the mould for which was made by Hob. The following day once the cement had dried a little more we tried casting a bell. Sadly the metal was poor quality scrap so the result was not very pleasing. The last day we cast another bell that failed to flow as the metal wasn't hot enough. Following on from this we tried again ensuring that there was sufficient heat but on this occasion there wasn't enough Bronze leaving a nice bell but with a hole in the top.

Despite the problems with the bronze the foundry proved itself as functioning. We did find that using the low grade Kentwell standard charcoal was not good as it resulted in huge amounts of sparks covering the any onlookers. However we also found that well seasoned oak in small pieces was acceptable and quite capable of generating the heat we needed.