What is a Pattern?

Sand casting was the process the Lunenburg Foundry used for about one hundred years to create a wide variety of cast iron parts for machines, engines, stoves, tools and other metal products. The last wood patterns for casting iron at the Foundry forge were made until the mid 1990s. 

Wooden patterns are made by pattern-makers to the exact specification of the part being made. The patterns were built from a hardwood that could withstand the heat and humidity of the Foundry. The patterns were pressed into sand to create a mold and then carefully extracted from the sand, leaving the imprint that would be filled with liquid molten metal with a temperature of about 1500 degrees C. This was all done very carefully by hand. 

Wood patterns can be used for hundreds of castings of a specific part, while others would be created for only one use. Some are very large for things like propellers, stoves and engines, while other patterns were very small to fit into larger machines and for a wide variety of uses.  

Some patterns are one half of an object with an identical pattern that is the other half. When fitted together tightly, they form a whole object. Parts of the pattern can also be joined to either side of a “match plate” to make it easy to press both sides of the mold at the same time.  

The Lunenburg Foundry used traditional colour coding using yellow, red and black paint. This denoted the steps that would be needed throughout the casting process. Red means that the final casting doesn’t require any machining. Yellow indicates that the surface does need to be machined on the final casting. Black means that the surface needs a core. 

Pattern storage has been a major challenge for most foundries, considering the overwhelming number used in a busy factory. Many were lost in fire. Keeping track of inventory and proper storage that guarantees that patterns can be used many times must have been very difficult in “the olden days” but the Lunenburg Foundry has done a remarkable job of storing and saving many of the intricate and unique patterns that you will find on this site.

Photos courtesy NS Archives

We’ve borrowed a few pages from a Lunenburg Foundry catalog circa 1950 that
illustrate the various patterns used at that time for many different uses.

MEET RODNEY ZINCK
Lunenburg Foundry Pattern Maker / 1978 to now

Rodney Zinck’s longevity with the company is pretty impressive, but not that unusual. His predecessor, Cyrus Morash made wood patterns for more than thirty years at the Foundry before he trained teenager Rodney in 1978. But it was a steep learning curve for Rodney because he became the sole patternmaker only a year and a half later, and has been responsible for a vast number of patterns ever since, going on 45 years.

Rodney stayed very busy in his first twenty years or so as a patternmaker but as new casting techniques were developed, the woodworking aspect has tapered off. He’s been a key player at the Foundry and has done pretty much anything that needed to be done, including running the furnace, pouring molten metal and finishing cast pieces. 

Spending most of his time in the machine shop in the past decade, Rodney still makes the occasional wood pattern, often for ship propellers with blades varying from two to six feet in length. But he finds the most pleasure in making plaques for monuments. Highly detailed, made to precise specifications, he finds this art challenging and satisfying. His work can be appreciated by the public down on the Lunenburg waterfront, all over the Nova Scotian South Shore, and beyond.

When Rodney is not at work, you’ll most likely find him outside - fishing, hunting, biking or walking, enjoying nature and the east coast lifestyle his family has helped cultivate for many generations.