Northern Manitoba & Mining 3
The old casting wheel was a product which was build in Pennsylvania in the late 1920's and then made it's way to Flin Flon. This operated in the smelter from the early days until about 1973 or 1974 when the new anode plant was built and came into operation. When you look at the old casting wheel, it was a rather primitive piece of equipment which had 750 lb. molds on it, and if my memory serves me right, I think there was 32 in number. These molds were also made, and cast right in the converter aisle, trimmed and then assembled on the casting wheel.
This image shows what was known as the mold casting stand. The sides and ends of the molds was made from cast iron. There was a large cast iron block in the centre with an identical shape of a copper block that had the letters H.B. This was for identification purposes as these blocks were shipped off to Noranda in Quebec, where they were refined into copper wire, and many other copper products. This photograph also shows the converter aisle when it only contained 2 converters so this was definitely in the very early stages of smelter operation.
This image shows molten copper being poured into the mold which made the actual mold for the copper block. We used to make 4 molds on each cast, which allowed us to keep the molds in relatively good shape so that they were easy to knock out and provide the desired shape and form required. We burnt up many feet of 1" x 4" spruce lumber which we used to shape and move the flow of the copper.
This image shows the copper carts that weighed approximately 150 lbs., and were made from boiler plate. When you started work in the smelter on the copper floor, these carts became a big part of your day. You used them for stacking copper when you were casting as shown in the above image, long time smelter employee, head loader and scale master Vic Cullen is on the cart. The 2 gentlemen with the loading hooks grab the bars and flip them up onto the carts and then they were stacked.
The copper blocks were stacked on a floor of railroad steel inverted to form a flat surface, as the bars were hot, and the steel rails would expand and contract and accomodate the cooling of the bars before the floor crew trimmed them. After they were trimmed and cooled, they were stacked in a loading area which in turn were loaded on day shift by Harry Sorenson, Vic Cullen who were the scale people and loading crew. Two bars were pushed to the scale on the carts, weighed and then loaded into the box cars for shipping.
In 1974 was the beginning of a new era of casting copper in our smelter. We moved into the use of a modern day casting rack, which was better refined copper, and much more manageable copper blocks known as copper anodes. The weight of the anode was somewhere around 720 lbs., about 300 lbs. greater than the blister copper block which we handled with awkward hand carts, but the anodes were being moved with tow motors, which was a great step forward.
This shows the copper anode after it has been picked up from the rack, and being stacked in a storage area to cool and prepare for loading. The tow motors as you can see have been designed with a special fork for handling the anode. Every new employee who worked in the smelter spent a few days on the bull gang with Ted Bouteiller, then off to the copper floor to work for Johnny Mason, Eddie Longmore or Alfred Ash who was known as Alabama. This was the way it was in 1957 - 1967.
The anodes were mechanically removed from the new anode casting wheel. This again was a great step forward from the old air hoist that was operated by the wheelman's helper. It was much safer and more efficient than in the past.
The loading of the copper anodes into the box cars with a tow motor and one operator was certainly different than when we used a team of 4 or 6 individuals pushing heavy boiler plate carts with 420 lb. copper blocks on them. It would take roughly 40 minutes for us to load a car, so the new anodes were certainly a more efficient method of handling the copper. The operator on the tow motor, is long time smelter employee Wayne Berg.
This shows copper being transferred from the converter pit to the anode holding vessel. This vessel was not only used to store the copper, but was also used to refine the copper to another level before casting it into anodes. The copper I believe was approximately 98% pure, which again was an improvement over the days of the blister copper block.
The above image shows copper being removed from #1 converter which was then transferred by the rail platform to the anode crane, then to the holding vessel for refining and casting.
This image gives you a good view of the anodes once they have been poured into the molds. The pouring of the anode was very efficient in comparison to the eyeball method that we used to cast the copper blocks. The copper came down a launder into a reservoir which was on a scale, and when it reached a certain weight, it then dumped it into a mold. This kept uniform weight and size for all anodes and very little trimming was required. The copper was refined to a higher level, bumps and warts that we used to have to chisel off the copper blocks, was no longer required.