Golden Foundry #27 Sorghum Mill
Oil wick covers
December 6, 2003


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This picture is of our Golden Foundry #27 Sorghum mill.  It is has six bearings that are oiled by wicks over each bearing.  Each wick-well originally had a cast iron cover but were all missing.  Five members of the Sweet Sorghum mailing list also have Golden Foundry mills that were also missing the covers.  Terry Hester's mill was missing all but one cover and he was gracious enough to loan it out so that it could be used as a pattern.  Here is the process I used to duplicate the covers.


The original cover that the pattern was modeled after.

 

I made a match plate out of wood that made enough lids for one mill (6)  with each pour.

 

Melting the aluminum.

My son Isaac adding scrap aluminum to the crucible.

Looking through the hole in the top of the furnace you can see the red hot heat.

It takes a lot of gas to fire the furnace. I kept haveing problems with the tanks freezing up.

Mold ready to pour.

 

Pouring the molten metal into the mold.

Crucible full of molten aluminum getting ready to pour into mold.

Pouring the aluminum.

Pouring the extra aluminum into an ingot mold.

Filling the ingot mold.

 

The mold poured and waiting for the metal to solidify.

The first couple of pour I had made rises over each lid.

On later pours I found I didn't need the extra risers and just used three over the main runner.

 

Opening the mold and knocking the sand off to see how they turned out.

After pulling the cope and the drag apart the top of the lids come into view.

The lids coming into view.

Smoke rising off of the hot metal.

 

Complete lids waiting to be cut apart, cleaned up, painted and installed.

View of the top of the lids with the risers, gates, and risers still attached.

Bottom view of the lids with the risers, gates, and runners still attached.

 

 

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