I am so happy to see that the castings are machining up well!
A little story on the production of the castings. My original intent was to produce the castings from Alan's patterns at the WA Young Foundry & Machine Shop. I reactivated their coke fired crucible furnace, which had not operated since before WWII, and successfully melted bronze in it. I brought down three molds to pour, but for various reasons all three ended up as short pours. We had planned to try again, but word got out to the press that we were to be running the furnace, and since I did not have permission for the metal pour to be a public event, I had to cancel it. Then about three days later the site was hit with torrential rains and enough water came down the hillside behind the building to penetrate the rear wall and run like a river right down the middle of the casting floor and out the front door!
By now I was very late in getting the castings finished, so to save time (Youngs is a 2 1/2 hour drive from Youngstown) I fabricated a temporary crucible furnace out of some 3" thick refractory board that I had salvaged from a steel mill, borrowed a propane forge burner and set out to melt the bronze in the J&L 58's enginehouse. Over two separate days I ran that furnace and melted down enough old Lunkenheimer, Walworth and Crane valve bodies to cast all nine parts that Alan needed.
I used to work in the foundry industry, from making 100 ton iron castings to tiny nonferrous parts, but pretty much gave it up several years ago. But it all came back to me fairly rapidly, and now I have caught the casting bug again . I will probably pour more bronze down at Young later in the year, and have plans for the construction of an iron cupola furnace in Youngstown now as well. From the same steel mill I also salvaged about 1,000 lbs. of SAE 660 bearing bronze, furnace fodder for a new set of rod bushings for the J&L 58 and whatever else comes along.
The vacuum brake castings were produced absolutely free of charge as a way to help support the work of the WW&F.