Coffee Tables made from sand casting wood molds

     I picked up these wood molds yesterday from a Nova Scotia dealer.  He said they are sand casting molds used in iron making from the Trenton Ironworks (now closed) in Trenton, Nova Scotia. 
     I made these coffee tables from the molds.  

    On the red coffee table I used a set of clawfoot bathtub feet; and on the yellow coffee table I used an old water tank stand that would have stood behind a wood stove.
     The tables measure 30" wide.

Here's information about Trenton Ironworks from Wikipedia.

     TrentonWorks is an industrial manufacturing facility located in the town of Trenton, Nova Scotia, Canada.  this collection of factories on the bank of the East River of Pictou has witnessed a large variety of industrial operations, ranging from steel making (the first steel plant in Canada), rolling mills, forging, shipbuilding, munitions manufacturing, rivets and bolts, and most recently (and longest lasting) rail cars.

The extensive plant is being converted to manufacture wind turbine components for South Korean industrial conglomerate Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in its first foray into North America; this is being made possible through corresponding investments by both the Government of Nova Scotia and the Government of Canada.

Below image cf.  www.doncoshhistoryoftrenton.blogspot.ca

 

Here’s some information about sand casting.

http://www.efunda.com/processes/metal_processing/sand_casting_intro.cfm

     Sand casting is used to make large parts (typically Iron, but also Bronze, Brass, Aluminum). Molten metal is poured into a mold cavity formed out of sand (natural or synthetic). The processes of sand casting are discussed in this section, include patterns, sprues and runners, design considerations, and casting allowance.  The cavity in the sand is formed by using a pattern (an approximate duplicate of the real part), which are typically made out of wood, sometimes metal. The cavity is contained in an aggregate housed in a box called the flask. Core is a sand shape inserted into the mold to produce the internal features of the part such as holes or internal passages. Cores are placed in the cavity to form holes of the desired shapes. Core print is the region added to the pattern, core, or mold that is used to locate and support the core within the mold. A riser is an extra void created in the mold to contain excessive molten material. The purpose of this is feed the molten metal to the mold cavity as the molten metal solidifies and shrinks, and thereby prevents voids in the main casting.

Typical Components of a Two-part Sand Casting Mold.