Burning
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
A phrase signifying brazing or mending broken castings by melting the joining edges and leaving the space filled with molten metal, which when set unites the parts. The common process consists of pouring a constant stream of hot fluid metal along the fissure or upon the surface until the parts are entirely fused, taking care to leave an excess of metal for subsequent chipping and trimming after it has become cold. See BRAZING; SOLDERING. Burnt Iron is all such iron as may have been for a lengthened period subject to a heat somewhat below the melting-point, on which account it has become little better than an oxide of iron. Its color is of the various shades of red, such as may be noticed in burnt retorts, grates, fire-bars, etc. Iron of this description should be used sparingly along with a large proportion of high silicon pig, if used at all. Any attempt to reduce such iron without a considerable admixture of good softener is sure to result in pasty and sluggish iron accompanied by an extraordinary amount of slag, which plays havoc with the cupola. The great amount of waste which occurs in melting this class of iron is of such extent as to make the operation a loss almost every way. See CHARGING THE COMMON CUPOLA; CUPOLA. Butt-rammer is usually a heavy rammer with a flat, round, or square face, forged or cast to a long rod or piece of tubing, with which to complete a course of ramming after the pegging-rammer has forced the soft sand well down on the course immediately underneath. See PEGGING-RAMMER.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When this foundry dictionary was compiled in 1892, repairing a cracked casting meant "pouring a constant stream of hot fluid metal along the fissure" until the edges fused an intensely skilled job with a high failure rate. Within a generation the oxy-acetylene torch (commercialised from about 1903) and then the metal-arc electrode made fusion welding of cast iron routine, and by the mid-twentieth century nickel-alloy electrodes and cold mechanical stitching had largely replaced the poured repair; the word "burning" survives mainly as "burning-in" among old hands. The warning about burnt iron still holds heavily oxidised scrap is bad charge material but the cupola it was meant to protect has itself given ground to the electric induction furnace, which melts a controlled charge without coke. Hand ramming with butt- and pegging-rammers, likewise, gave way to jolt-squeeze machines and today to automated high-pressure moulding lines and 3D-printed sand cores.
Written for this edition, 2026.