iron pour

On Saturday night I was at Christmas party with some of the glass blower friends and found out an iron pour would be held the next day the crafts center. One of them was running it and some of the others had prepared molds for the pour so I decided to drop by and watch. I'd been to one pour at San Diego State University a few years ago and it’s pretty interesting to watch the process- fire, heat, white hot molten metal and beer (for the spectators). Since I’d left to Singapore they’d started up the equipment for iron casting at the studio here and have been holding a few per year following a mold making class. So all the prep work for the molds is done in advance then when the day comes they’re filled with molten iron leaving you with a chunk of iron in the shape of your design that will last literally almost forever.A fire is started in a special furnace using coke as fuel which is continuously stoked by an air blower. Eventually the temperature gets high enough to add in scrap iron which will melt and flow down to the bottom of the furnace. At this point a port is broken out from the side and the iron flows out into crucible at about 3200 degree F – at that temp the color is literally white hot and it flows out just like water. The crucible is carried over to the prepared molds and poured. After the iron had cooled and solidified the molds are broken apart revealing the cast pieces- not having seen and of the mold making it was fun to see what came out of all the molds at the end of the day.It’s really amazing to think people were doing this over a thousand years ago and basically the only difference is they didn’t have an electric air blower to stoke the fire. The air stream was supplied by hand pumped bellows! In this world with everything moving towards higher technology and virtual representations of reality it’s remarkably stimulating to participate is this kind of low tech activity and to actually make something real with your own hands.after the metal cools the molds are broken apart to release the form

rain and planes

It’s been a week in San Diego and so far it's a lot of rain. On my first day here last Saturday San Diego had the first measurable rain in 163 days, and today it's been pouring all day long. People in San Diego don't see much rain so when they do, they drive really crazy- I noticed the roads don't deal with the water, allowing it to drain off quickly, as well as the Singapore roads. The first rain days of the season see literally hundreds of car crashes on the roads throughout the county since the roads are at their most slick state when wetted after the long dry period.

Over the weekend I flew up to Sacramento for my brother's swearing in to the Bar Association. It's a quick flight up to Sacramento and was pretty routine until after we landed. After we reached the gate and the seatbelt sign was turned off things got very strange. Nobody got up to grab their bags, stand in the aisles and push to the front to get out first. This is so common and almost second nature to me after being on flights in Asia so long that I really had to fight the urge to keep seated and wait for the people to deplane in such an orderly manner. It's actually pretty nice, and doesn't take any longer to get off the plane.

In Sacramento we also had a turducken for dinner Saturday night. a turkey stuffed with a chicken that is stuffed with a duck which is stuffed with ... stuffing. First time having it and it was pretty good. Coined "The Trinity of the Fowl" by our grandfather. The turkey part exploded during the cooking splitting it in half It was a bit of a mess to cut and ended up as a huge plate of fowl and stuffing