Found Dreaming

A few of the old, previously active members have shown up back at the Alloy Avenue forum. Maybe they got lonely in their foundries.

Richard

Hasn't been much going on here. I've been trying to do some things but still working on the house.

yea, Ive seen alot of them coming back, but not sure if I was around long enough to call myself and old member, lol.

What we need are new members who are serious, not just "pour some ingots and then on to the next new thing". The real casters are kind of "forumed out", and the new guys aren't casting much. I'm willing to go a long way to give what I know to a guy who is really up to something, but to advise another guy who has built a KOR plaster furnace, I am tired of them.

Richard

You have given a lot of very good advice to casters on all forums. I've learned a lot from you, but can't seem to get to put it in practice.

people doing the same old thing,and asking the same old questions, gets old after a while, there was a lot of good work done at AA by some people that were top notch in my opinon.

I stick my head in the window here every couple of weeks just to see if anything is happening. I been up to my eyeballs in bees all summer, damn little insects can keep you busy trying to keep them from leaving or dying.

I did pull one corner of the cover back on my sand bin the other day, does that count towards my master casters card,

Dave, you are a man I think i understand. I have moved from one passionate interest to another four or five times over my 76 years. It would appear that I have dropped sculpture, at least for now. I spent twenty years, seven days a week, in my sculpture studio working. I had talent, but no genius.

Years ago, a man named Peter Warr said something that has stuck with me. He was world famous as the manager of Colin Chapman's Lotus Formula One racing team. He was also an accomplished race-driver.
What he said was: (I paraphrase):
"I was driving in a Formula One race at the Nurburgring. It was one of those days when everything I did was exactly right. I went into each turn at exactly the right speed, at exactly the right angle. Everything clicked. I won the race. And that was the day I quit racing. What I realized that day was that I have a day like that once a year, whereas Jim Clark has a day like that every weekend."
What Warr saw was that, as a race-driver, he had talent, but no genius. And Peter Warr was a man interested in genius. He knew genius, and his Lotus team had a lot of it. He fielded some of the greatest race-drivers ever. His genius was in team management. At that he was a master.

I raced cars when I was a kid. I sometimes regret that I didn't follow that path. I had real talent, but I didn't stick with it long enough to see if I had genius; I went to college instead. I should have stuck with racing.

Ernest Hemingway once said, "There are only three sports: bullfighting, mountain climbing, and automobile racing. All the rest are simply games."

One of the greatest race-drivers ever, Stirling Moss, summed it up pretty well. He said, "To achieve anything in this game you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster."

I have always loved it out there---on that boundary he talks about. Before sculpture, I spent some time out there, but that's a story for another day. There are few fates worse than being talked to death.

Richard

Well, I might have been a good race-driver or died trying. I always loved to drive fast. I went into SCUBA early in my life and then continued into hard hat diving, underwater welding and the like. Worked on dams and railroad bridges. I've been down over 200 feet but usually worked in less than 20 feet. My mistake was getting my SCUBA instructors license and trying to teach people who just didn't get the same thrill I did. I got aggravated and qit, moved on to Beekeeping, Letterpress printing and then casting. Each of them I've done to extreems. Not casting so much but I've always had big plans.

Too soon Old, Too late Smart!

My passion has always been drums. Wanting to cast a bronze one is what led me to you fine gentleman. While I have time left, my moments are few and far between...

Still thinking about how to cast that drum.