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Vermont Castings Plant Tour

Bob shows off the beautiful red Victorian inspired wood-burning stove to be installed in our project. To give further details he visits the Vermont Casting plant. For additional information see our article written in season twelve during the Elmwood project. At the plant Bob visits with the plant manager and they discuss how the mold is crafted then cast to make future stove panels. They then head over to the hoppers where the cast iron ingredients, including recycled material, scrap and pig iron ingots are mixed to provide consistent material for the stoves. The molten cast iron is added to a sand mold then cooled and sand blasted to smooth it out. Enamel paint is then applied and baked on in a kiln for two hours. The initial color sprayed on does not look like what comes out of the kiln. One of the last steps in the process of building the stove is adding a catalytic converter, which makes it more efficient and pollute less. The stove we are using in our project has 26 individually cast, iron pieces.
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Vermont Castings Plant Tour

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" -Take a look at that. A very beautiful cast iron wood-burning stove, energy efficient but in a Victorian design, you might say, especially this deep red color. If you wanna find out how these are made, just watch."

" -Hi, Richard."

" -Hi, Bob. How are you?"

" -Well, we're really excited about learning how the cast iron stoves are made. What's the first step."

" -Well, Bob, after the stove's design has been decided upon, the first thing is to take the individual components and make them into master patterns."

" -So this would be a front component."

" -Right. This is the front plate from our newest product, the Radiance gas stove. "

" -Okay."

" -Now, the purpose of making a master pattern is that we need to go and make production plates out of it."

" -Okay."

" -Now, the creation of production plates is actually a 2-step process. First, we take a plastic impression of the master that we see here."

" -Which is what we're looking at here."

" -That's right. This is, and there is a front and a back side of this plastic impression."

" -Both sides of that, yeah."

" -Then the next thing we do is cover the impression, the plastic impression with a metal coating."

" -Why is that?"

" -Well, these production plates are gonna be used to make impressions in a block of sand."

" -Thousands of times?"

" -Thousands of times, literally, and if we didn't have a metal backing, a metal face to it like this, what would happen is after a few hundred impressions, it would start to loose the fine detail."

" -You lose the crispness of the line, yeah."

" -Yeah. And these, what these 2 production plates do is in effect they create a hollow cavity in a block of sand into which molten cast iron can be poured."

" -Okay, so that would be the next step actually at the foundry."

" -That's right and that's where we should go out right now."

" -Great. That way?"

" -That way."

" -Wow, so Richard, this is all the raw material, right?"

" -Right, Bob. This is where all the material is collected to make into our cast iron plates. The cast iron actually come from 3 different ingredients. One is re-melt from the production process itself."

" -Sure."

" -The second is cast iron and scrap. The third ingredient we use is pig iron ingots."

" -Okay."

" -The reason why I use pig iron ingots is because it's high in carbon and silicon, and this allows the cast iron to have a little softness so that when it expands, it doesn't break, it doesn't crack or turn brittle on its own."

" -So what's going on here?"

" -Well, Bob, this is the machine that makes the sand molds."

" -Uh huh."

" -The production plates we saw earlier are put in this machines, the space between the plates is filled with sand."

" -Alright."

" -Then the plate is compressed against the block of sand with the force of 750 pounds per square inch--"

" -So where is--"

" -In effect creating the sand mold."

" -And then the molten metal that we see over here is actually going on to the sand."

" -Well, there's actually a hole in the top of the sand mold, yes, that's true, then it's filled with molten cast iron just the amount necessary for that particular plate."

" -Wonderful."

" -Bob, we're at our enameling facility here, and what we have here is one of the cast pieces that we just saw, and to enamel it, we have a shop to make sure this is clean and as free of dirt as we can make it, and then as in the second process, right, is to put a ground coat on it. This is ceramic grafting material that we use in order to protect the enamel from the high heat it's gonna be subject to."

" -Alright. And where does the actual color gets put on it? Which way?"

" -The actual color is in the spray, being applied in the spray rooms right now."

" -Now, let's go at it."

" -Even though that's colorless, somewhat violet, it's actually our red enamel finish and when that goes through the kiln to cure it at 1500 degrees for 2 hours, it's gonna come out and actually be dark brown for a little bit, but when it cools off, it's gonna be that beautiful red that we're looking for."

" -Okay, can we go look at the other end where they--"

" -Sure, let's go."

" -Boy, you weren't kidding, that is a beautiful shade of red."

" -Okay, so these are the pieces that connect the transition to the stovepipe, right?"

" -Right."

" -So we're gonna be going out to assembly area shortly to see how your stove is actually put together."

" -Wonderful. So all the different components are in these different hoppers here."

" -That's right."

" -Right."

" -Let's go see the assembly line."

" -Richard, how many different parts go into putting together a stove? "

" -This iron stove takes 26 individual cast iron pieces to make its shell."

" -What's he doing here?"

" -Right now, he's applying a bead of furnace cement to all the exterior seams."

" -Why do you need that?"

" -Well, the furnace cement keeps unwanted air from entering the firebox and shortening the burn time and making it very hard to control the heat output of the stove. "

" -Okay. And then here's some of the beautiful front piece."

" -Front piece is now sold. This is the shell being constructed. Now the exterior side piece is put in."

" -Okay. Now, you've got the basic side. What about the innards?"

" -Well, the next thing to install is the catalytic converter."

" -So, Richard, what does the catalytic converter do?"

" -Catalytic converter increases the efficiency of the stove by almost 50%."

" -This is it right here?"

" -That's right. But more importantly, it also reduces the amount of pollutants emitted by a wood stove from 50 grams an hour down to a certified 2 grams per hour."

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