Existing comment:
Making Tools
Patterns and Castings:
Machinists constructed the three machines in front of you during the 1910s or 1920s in this shop. Then workers moved them down the street to the Edison Phonograph Works, where they were used to mass-produce disc photograph records.
Each machine is made of several metal parts. Simple-shaped parts, like rods, sheets, or plates, were cut from solid stock. Complex-shaped parts had to be cast. Casting a part required a wood pattern cut by craftsmen in the Laboratory Building 3 Pattern Shop. Then the wood pattern was sent to an off-site foundry, where skilled laborers used the pattern to form a mold and then poured hot liquid metal into it. When a cast-metal part went back to the lab, machinists in this shop cut it to exact dimensions and attached it to a new machine.
What Is A Foundry?
A foundry is a factory or shop that produces castings. In a foundry, molten metal is poured into a mold and allowed to cool. Once solid, it is released from the mold to make a fabricated part called a casting. |