The week our sand system went down and we had to pour molds by hand

That was a real mess, let me tell you. Our main sand muller broke on a Tuesday morning, and the part was going to take four days to get here from Ohio. We had a huge order of gray iron brackets for a factory in Detroit that couldn't wait. So, the boss said we had to mix and ram all the sand by hand, just like the old days. My arms were killing me by noon, and we only got about half our normal work done. The worst part was the consistency was all over the place, and we had a bunch of molds wash out during the pour. I think we scrapped maybe thirty castings that week. Has anyone else had to go back to manual sand prep for a big job, and how did you keep the quality up?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthewgonzalez18d ago

Man, that sounds brutal. We had a similar thing happen with a big gear order. The only way we made it work was by having one guy, the oldest hand in the shop, mix all the sand. He did nothing else all day. His mix was the only thing that held up. You really feel it when the machines are gone, don't you? Makes you respect how they used to do it.

abby_singh17d agoProlific Poster

Wait, he mixed sand ALL day?