BATH CASTING

Casting techniques used nowhere else in the world

Drummonds' new bathroom products are made by hand in the company’s own foundry and workshops in Sanok, south east Poland.

Pursuit of manufacturing excellence and highly skilled craftspeople led Drummonds to Poland in the late 1990s. Our design concepts are engineered by Polish experts and made using time-honoured techniques, most of which have been lost by other manufacturers and are used nowhere else in the world.

This page, and the pages on bath enamelling and bath finishing, give you a glimpse of the expertise and precision behind each of our bath designs, as well as the sheer time and effort needed to produce the exquisite, high quality products which carry the Drummonds brand name.

Below, we take you step by step through the process of making a pattern, casting and then shotblasting an Usk freestanding bath using this traditional method. All baths are made from high quality cast iron using the sandcasting system that was used by Victorian foundries.

We also have a video of the cast iron bath manufacturing process on this site.

Step 1: Pattern making

A resin or fibre glass pattern is made from detailed engineering drawings of the new bath or shower tray.

Once hard, the pattern is sanded, measured and finished. The pattern is then used to create a sand mould.

Step 2: Bath casting

The pattern is lowered into a timber framework container and filled with specially prepared casting sand.

This mixture of sand, resin and hardener, is pressed into every cavity to create a mould of the interior of the bath.

The black sand hardens into a cement-like structure, within an hour.

It is turned upside down and the framework removed, revealing the pattern.

A separate pattern for the distinctive base of the Usk bath is then screwed in place. A second container is used in order to mould the exterior of the bath.

As the sand pours in, it is pressed and compacted down to ensure there are no air bubbles or cavities which can cause imperfections in the casting. After the pattern has been removed, the interior and exterior moulds are bolted together, ready for casting. The molten iron will fill the space between the two moulds.

High quality iron ore is prepared to the right temperature and viscosity for casting.

The rate of pour is crucial and is controlled by hand by Drummonds’ skilled foundry workers. Once cooled, the sand is broken away and recycled, leaving the cast iron bath. This process takes up to 24 hours to complete.

Throughout the process strict quality controls are enforced and inspections made at every stage to ensure high quality casting. Every bath is numbered and a sample of the metal is taken to analyse the metal structure.

Step 3: Shotblasting

After inspection, a raw bath is shot blasted with tiny pieces of metal to remove scale and provide a finish to which the enamel can bond.

Enamelling a bath is the next stage of the process

del.icio.us