The art of casting design, an interesting patent history of stoves from Troy, NY

[begreen]

The Albany/Troy area was famous for its craftsmanship and detailed castings in the 1800's Here is a blog on two of the best designers of the time.

The Great Partnership: Ezra Ripley and Nicholas Swart Vedder, Troy Stove Designers, 1836-1864

The Great Partnership: Ezra Ripley and Nicholas Swart Vedder, Troy, NY Stove Designers, 1836-1864 The recent appearance of another attrac...

stovehistory.blogspot.com

 

[DAKSY]

Thanks, BG.
Troy is my hometown. You can still see some of the older units manufactured here
in a couple of places. Troy is also the Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the USA,
thanks to the many tributaries to the Hudson River. Water power! Henry Burden's Iron
Works in Troy manufactured horseshoes for the Union Army & also forged the plates for
the Iron Clad Monitor. At one time, the largest over-shot waterwheel was in operation at
his facility. The lake we live on is called Burden Lake & this lake, along with 4 others feed
the Wynantskill Creek, which flows to the Hudson & has many cascades & waterfalls.
All of those water-powered factories are gone, but the history is forever.

 

[defiant3]

Fellow Trojan! I live in NH now, family from Lansingburg, Center Brunswick&Poestenkill. Lived in Sycaway myself!

 

[RockCastile]

That one would be a grand slam on Antiques Roadshow. The pullout quote for me however: "The peculiar shape had no practical purpose, and would certainly have made it harder to keep clean."

 

[DAKSY]

Fellow Trojan! I live in NH now, family from Lansingburg, Center Brunswick&Poestenkill. Lived in Sycaway myself!

Hey, Homie! Grew up near Jack's in Wynantskill. Troy High Class of 70. Burden Lake near Kay's Pizza since 1985.

 

[peakbagger]

One of my first jobs was with a company that had a pattern maker near retirement. This division of large company supported repairs and new equipment to support manufacturing operations all over the US. They had a barn full of older patterns from long before he worked there. His patterns were functional versus decorative but he still put in lot of pride. I think he used mahogany for the pattern stock. I didnt get to talk to him much as I was on evening shift but he was quite proud of his work and speculated that once he was retired they would not be able to replace him. One of our frequent runs were egg carton molds. They guy with many of the design patterns for egg cartons worked there. He was quite proud of his beak lock design that holds the top cover from opening by the use of two tabs that fit in slots on the cover. They had small lab pilot line there so I got to see how they make molded fiber products.

That was long before the new lost foam and 3 D printing technology was developed which now allows manufactures to make previously "impossible" casting with internal details and much closer tolerances. Patterns now can be printed up on a 3D printer direct to a Cad file out of material that will melt away when the hot metal hits it. I think that method was called "lost foam" which is just a modern interpretation of lost wax. With these modern techniques the find patterns used in these stove could be duplicated but every fine line and crevice is potential point for a crack to form so the originals pattern makers art and experience would have to be recreated to do it. The other aspect is that to make such fine castings the foundry has to make a higher quality feedstock and control the pour to make a fine grained casting.