Match-board
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
Same as match-plate, except that it is made of wood instead of metal. See MATCH-PLATE; MATCH-PART. Match-part, sometimes called a "sand odd-part" by the moulder. This is a device for economizing time in making partings when a large number of castings are required to be made in the same kind of flasks. One method of procedure is as follows: Procure a well-made "roll-over" board, and arrange the pattern or patterns suitably for gating, etc., and wherever portions of the pattern must of necessity project upwards into the cope, set them just in that position on the board by cutting out the wood at the points of projection, taking care that the parts of the board adjacent to the patterns shall leave the parting all ready made around them when the nowel has been rammed and rolled over. Another ready way of accomplishing this is to extemporize a match-part by forming the same in sand, hard rammed into an odd flask of equal dimensions with the ones to be used; this may be coated with tar and dried, and will be found very serviceable. A decided improvement on the last may be obtained by first making the parting in the usual manner and covering the same with oil, and a good sprinkling of parting-sand; after which set thereon a wood frame (no deeper than is absolutely necessary), having a bottom nailed on, with a few nails driven here and there clear of the parting. A hole in the centre will permit the space to be filled with plaster, which, running all over the surface and around the nails, will, when set, be found a perfect impression of the joint required. The nails will prevent it from dropping out. See MATCH-PLATE; ROLL-OVER BOARD.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The Encyclopedia of Founding described the match-board in 1892 as simply a match-plate "made of wood instead of metal," with the moulder improvising a parting from tarred sand or a plaster impression cast around nails. The principle is untouched: match plates carrying pattern halves on both faces are still the standard tool for high-volume green-sand moulding, though wood has largely given way to aluminium, cast iron and resin, and the plates are usually machined or CNC-cut rather than whittled at the bench. The larger shift is around the technique rather than in it. Automatic flaskless machines such as the Danish DISAMATIC, introduced in 1964, produce vertically parted moulds at hundreds an hour, and since the 2000s foundries have printed sand moulds directly from digital files by binder jetting, skipping the pattern and its board entirely.
Written for this edition, 2026.