Sustainable Foundry
French Mountain Studios is collaborating with cast iron artists, faculty, engineers, and foundry experts to develop a new, sustainable furnace and foundry operation to reduce our dependance on and usage of legacy fossil fuels. We have been researching, designing, and building cutting edge tech for small volume furnace operation, and we have now successfully built and tested multiple furnaces that produce hot iron on a scale and speed approaching that of coke fired furnaces.
This summer we visited East Germany and helped artist Hans Molzberger convert his large tilt furnace into a state of the art waste oil iron caster. Below are some images and highlights of the conversion, and if you're interested in the details, our latest foundry report is in the link below, or just hit the top image.
The start of the build required removing the stack, fabricating custom grates and installing the burner port
This burner was custom built and tuned on site, and is highly adjustable
Once the grates were cured, the furnace was assembled and we tested
contact us if this foundry process is something you would like to employ in your studio or institution.
Click here for a copy of our latest report, for previous results here and click here for a parts and materials list that could help you get started converting your system to a more sustainable process.
Previous tests and content below:
Pouring molds with bio-fuel iron