Out of the frying pan... into the rigging

Jay Ashworth

Well-Known Member
Lodge Cast Iron has apparently thought up a new way to get some free publicity: they've cast a 7 ton frying pan, and they're going to display it in their Tennessee retail outlet.

Anyone know who's going to be rigging the store display, so it doesn't smush any customers? :)

 
paul-bunyan-0129.jpg
 
Lodge Cast Iron has apparently thought up a new way to get some free publicity: they've cast a 7 ton frying pan, and they're going to display it in their Tennessee retail outlet.

Anyone know who's going to be rigging the store display, so it doesn't smush any customers? :)

I've shot a lot of pictures in foundries and plants making mold-making machinery. (You guys don't know what dirty lighting and camera equipment is 'til you've spent a couple weeks shooting in a foundry!) That's one tough casting to cool without cracking!
 
I've shot a lot of pictures in foundries and plants making mold-making machinery. (You guys don't know what dirty lighting and camera equipment is 'til you've spent a couple weeks shooting in a foundry!) That's one tough casting to cool without cracking!
@JonCarter Don't they just quench it in oil like all the contestants on Forged In Fire?
Ron Hebbard
 
@JonCarter Don't they just quench it in oil like all the contestants on Forged In Fire?
Ron Hebbard
Ron, Depends on the size of the casting and the end use of the casting. E.g., little pipe fittings are cast in large molds, often 4'-5' square, hundred or 2 in a mold, and are the molds are dumped in minutes after casting and the castings shaken out. Big things (like this skillet) probably use a heated mold (so part of the pour doesn't solidify before the whole thing is poured) and a controlled cooling, as if one part of he casting cools (and contracts) differently than another stresses are set up in the casting and it's likely to break in use. Very slow, controlled cooling for something that big--I'd guess half-day or so min. Mold design and casting for big castings is an art. And it all may depend on the alloy being cast, too.
 
Back in the day, for the smaller ingots say about 20” by 6’, we used exothermic hot topping compound. Not really sure what’s in it but the point was to keep the top from cooling too fast and turning the ingot into a pipe. For the next size up, we had the soaking pit. Basically a pit with a sliding lid and a bunch of gas fired burners. I don’t remember the btu input but would guess it ran just under 1000F. It was maybe 20’ square so this pan would have fit easily.

For the 94” by 95” ingot, we had a machine that melted two 18” diameter by 15’ electrodes made of the same material into the casting at the same rate as it shrank. This usually took 2 or 3 days and a 20,000A power supply. I don’t remember how many times the electrodes needed replacing as they were consumed.

All this was from ‘84 to ‘91, I was 23 and it was the coolest place to work if you liked big machines and fire! The tongs used to pick up the big ingot weighed 22 tons and one of the heat treat furnaces had 36 3 million btu burners.

Michael
 
Quenching as in Forged in Fire, works on Steel, not Cast Iron. Cast iron will crack if rapidly quenched.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back