It has been a couple of days since I last posted anything. Tuesday was spent in large part driving all over Talsi with Ojars on various errands. The most important of which was taking the 4th ‘something in the eye’ person to the clinic. Also two different stops at City Hall for paperwork, permits, etc. delivery of stones and my iron sculpture to the Talsi museum for the exhibition, etc. Spent the rest of the day on various small tasks related to Steve Coles tractor furnace. Wed. turned into a casting day as Steve wanted to test his new cupolette and we needed to pour Ojars clouds. The furnace gave us the usual problems associated with small bore, single tyre furnaces. We tapped one small ladle of iron and then dropped the bottom. Cold iron had made it’s way below the melt zone. Relaid the bed , fired her back up and realized that the blower was putting way too much air in the furnace. Cut it back and she heated up nicely. We got a couple of more taps out of her with success and then started getting a cold tap hole that required much hammering to open. We also had to break coke, gather iron and service the cupola with a small crew so by the time we finished it was 10:30. Ojars was on one of his endless errands so we had to wait for him to get back and open Dare so we could have a few beers. It was 1 AM by the time I packed it in. This little pour was harder than the previous two big pours!
Ken and I made some suggestions for altering the furnace ,which Steve accepted and accomplished on Thur. so we will run it again today to see if the re-fit solves the problems. Yesterday was pretty quiet with a walk into town through the park during a warm, dry and very pleasant morning followed by a very wet and cold afternoon and night. Christian and Villu arrived on Thur. and Fri. respectively as did a small army of conference participants. Today was the official start of the conference so we had to go in for panels. Ojars releases his book this evening with a signing and there are additional festivities scheduled so it should be a busy evening. I will close this and get into my leathers and go test Steve’s furnace. Keep following.
I don’t know if I will ever understand why people insist on making small furnaces. They are more trouble than they’re worth. Just make one from a proven design and get on with making art instead of screwing around! It’s like trying to reinvent the table saw every time you want to cut something – or making a new welder every time you need to weld something – as though you can design a machine better than the hundreds of people who have made all the mistakes before you. I just do not understand artists’ compulsion to reinvent the wheel instead of making art with a wheel that works.