 |  | | | Foundry memories | There are 3 messages in this section. |
David Findlay from Rosyth. Posted 14 Mar 2002.
I worked at a small foundry in Alloa throughout most of the 1950s. It made propellers for pumps and I worked mostly as a moulder, spending days spraying graphite paint onto sand to show where to pour the molten steel.
What I remember most though, is the way we would drink our tea from improvised billy cans made from old syrup tins, banging them on the ground before drinking to get the tea leaves to settle. I also remember that this was the time when showers were first introduced to the foundry and how many of the old timers wouldnt use them. Whether this was through modesty or force of habit I never worked out but their wives must have been driven up the wall at how clarty they came home. | | |
|  | David McCulloch from Glasgow. Posted 18 Apr 2002.
I had qualifications to go to Uni. I wanted to do a BSc course in Chemistry, but my parents could not afford to let me go. It was £550 plus lab fees and books over 3 years. There were no Grants then in l948. If you were a super brain you could sit an exam for a Bursary but only a few had that capability. It was decided that I would get a job in a lab at The Steel Company of Scotland and study at night to be a metallurgist.
The lab was next to the furnaces and was very small and hot with all the worksurfaces covered with a heavy coating of ash. The noise was horrendous, and a railway line outside with steam engines passing almost non-stop pulling coal and iron ore for the furnaces .It was what I would have imagined hell was like! My job was to record samples from the tappings from the furnaces. To do this you put samples in a test tube and poured Nitric Acid into it to dissolve the sample. I was shown by one of the chemists what to do, which did not take him long. I was a bit scared using the acid and was told to use this demi-john over my shoulder and pour the acid in that way. It was quite heavy and I missed the test tube and poured the acid up my sleeve. Nothing happened for a little while then it started burning my skin. One of the chemists saw I was in trouble and poured Ammonia on and you can imagine the fumes. I don't know what was worse. I eventually saw the nurse who bandaged me up and sent me home early.
That was my first day's work experience!
When I got home my mum said I was not going back there again. So ended my career in Science.
I got a nice, clean and safe job in a bank to tide me over until I was called up for National Service six months later. There I stayed for nearly 40 years, but didn't really like it! I suppose the accident was a blessing in disguise in view of the way things went with Steel companies in Scotland, at least I had a job but it wasn't my calling as you could say.
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| | William Barr from Ayrshire. Posted 13 Jan 2003.
I worked in a foundry in Ayr from 1953 as an apprentice Iron Moulder and like the previous correspondent saw the introduction of showers in the foundry with similar experience ie the older members of staff did not use them it was also the case with some of the younger staff. It was a good exprience, working with different types of moulding, I made moulds using the drysand technique, where the moulds were put in an oven and dried before casting as oppesed to greensand moulding where moulds could be made right up to the time of casting. This ended with callup for National Service in 1960. On return there was not the same demand for moulders due to a ressiesion in the shipbuilding trade, this led me to have an entirely new career.
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