窪蹋勛圖厙

 

A sustainable keepsake

Pewter pin made using the Prometheus furnace

- May 30, 2012

Pouring the pewter for the ESS keepsake. (Nick Pearce photo)
Pouring the pewter for the ESS keepsake. (Nick Pearce photo)

Prometheus is more than just the name of a big summer movie opening next week. Its a furnace in fact, the first fossil fuel-free furnace of its kind, located at Nova Scotias Lunenburg Industrial Foundry & Engineering Limited, established in 1891.

It was a logical choice, then, for Dalhousies College of Sustainability to approach the foundry and develop a special keepsake pewter lapel pin for the first class of Environment, Sustainability and Society grads.

The Prometheus furnace, solar-powered, represents a synthesis of sustainable method and local character ideal for marking a 窪蹋勛圖厙ESS graduate.

One of the unique aspects of Lunenburg Foundry is that its located smack-dab in the middle of a UNESCO world heritage site, says Peter Kinley, the foundrys president and a graduate of the Nova Scotia Technical College (nowadays Dalhousies Sexton Campus).

The Prometheus furnace, he says, was a by-product of the Lunenburg Foundrys determination to maintain the purity of their picturesque surroundings in their business practices. The furnace has a huge advantage in the simplicity and cost effectiveness of concentrated solar energy my son Joseph, whos an engineer, came up with the project codename. He had studied Greek mythology and felt it was appropriate.

There are no shortcuts to quality, as Mr. Kinley demonstrates when he outlines the painstaking step-by-step process of making the pins, which bear the ESS's "Change" motto. (Left: a pin fresh out of the rubber mould.)

The design was put together, he says. The first pattern was developed from a 3D printer at the Sexton Campus. That was used to make a rubber mold wax positives were then assembled we dip them in ceramic, then we melted the wax out and poured the solar heated hot metal in. And that gave us the little castings安hich were finally mounted on pins, he concludes. Its basically the same product as you would get through using fossil fuels the main difference is were doing this with clean energy and so were doing it sustainably.

The Prometheus furnace isnt usually used for small jewellery. It more frequently casts the companys line of brass souvenirs, and the development team is targeting larger commercial pieces such as propellers and machine components things that you certainly couldnt put on your lapel, Mr. Kinley wisecracks. Youd be falling over.

A smaller casting, however, isnt necessarily simpler. These happen to be about the smallest metal castings weve ever made the details are very important. Weve learned a lot of neat tricks as weve gone through it.