Re: NNG - Good News! Knight Foundry to be Saved!!

bcp Wrote:
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> Is it being preserved as a museum piece
> or will it still do some work?


The city of Sutter Creek - on Highway 49 about 60 miles east-southeast of Sacramento, CA - has taken title to the property and structures, but $325,000 is still needed to purchase the existing equipment, patterns and tools, etc. that would be needed to return the foundry to operation.  This includes a complete belt-line shop with lathes, milling machines and so forth for making wooden patterns as well as all of the metal-working equipment used to clean up and finish the iron castings.  So there is still hope that Knight Foundry will - like the C&TS - become an OPERATING museum that will function as it did over 100 years ago, and will again be able to cast custom parts for restorationists as well as more common items like iron stoves, park benches and street lamps, etc.

Walter Gray of the CRRM led a tour of the foundry back in 1994 that included a demonstration of the blast furnace melting down some scrap iron and pouring it into several molds – a very interesting day, to say the least!  IIRC, there's an open house scheduled for Saturday, March 4 - check the website at [www.knightfoundry.com] for details.

- Gramps