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Somerset / Re: Bishops Foundry, Wellington
« on: Thursday 01 January 15 09:58 GMT (UK) »
Hello Canny, I had quite forgotten this!
It might be helpful to explain that your bits and pieces from Bishop’s Foundry technically are known as “patterns”. As suggested, it is these which are used to make female impressions in the sand and it is the void left after removal of the pattern that becomes the “mould” into which any molten material subsequently can be poured.
Sometimes a customer would possess a pattern, perhaps used to replicate an earlier casting but often the foundry would be asked to “make one of these” and would provide the pattern, either from its own workshops or bought in from an outside patternmaker and would then own the pattern and this, no doubt, explains your collection. Patternmaking is a highly skilled undertaking requiring an appreciation of the thermal characteristics of differing materials, draw angles and the like and the patterns, made from soft wood (so need treating with care), can be works of art in their own right. Some are simple, others can be complex and in several pieces depending upon the nature of the end product.
Can I please urge you to secure the stuff you have at Weston Zoyland? We are losing too much of our heritage and the custodianship of often misguided bodies, amateur and “official” alike, does not help. The current state of Fox’s Woollen Mills in Wellington is a very sad demonstration of this.
Best wishes
It might be helpful to explain that your bits and pieces from Bishop’s Foundry technically are known as “patterns”. As suggested, it is these which are used to make female impressions in the sand and it is the void left after removal of the pattern that becomes the “mould” into which any molten material subsequently can be poured.
Sometimes a customer would possess a pattern, perhaps used to replicate an earlier casting but often the foundry would be asked to “make one of these” and would provide the pattern, either from its own workshops or bought in from an outside patternmaker and would then own the pattern and this, no doubt, explains your collection. Patternmaking is a highly skilled undertaking requiring an appreciation of the thermal characteristics of differing materials, draw angles and the like and the patterns, made from soft wood (so need treating with care), can be works of art in their own right. Some are simple, others can be complex and in several pieces depending upon the nature of the end product.
Can I please urge you to secure the stuff you have at Weston Zoyland? We are losing too much of our heritage and the custodianship of often misguided bodies, amateur and “official” alike, does not help. The current state of Fox’s Woollen Mills in Wellington is a very sad demonstration of this.
Best wishes