Abstract: A sand mold forming machine has a cope frame aligned above a drag frame with a pattern arranged between, and within, the frames. A sand filling is positioned in each of the frames. The sand fillings are compacted by squeeze plates overlaying the open, upper and lower ends of the cope and drag respectively. The squeeze plates are moved towards each other to compress the sand within the frames and against the pattern. Each of the squeeze plates is made of numerous, separate sections that are mounted upon a movable platten. The sections, of each plate, may move together as a group by moving the plattens or, the sections may be individually moved, relative to the plattens. Thus, pre-selected areas of the sand fillings may be compacted more or less, as desired, than adjacent areas by separately moving opposing sections relative to the overall squeezing movements of the squeeze plate.

Abstract: Worn interior wall surfaces of a sand casting flask cope or drag frame are resurfaced by covering the surface with thin, metal liner plates. The liner plates are bolted to the flask walls by bolts that extend through bolt holes in the liner plates and walls. The bolt holes through the plates are provided with deep countersinks for receiving the bolt heads and spacing the bolt heads beneath the exposed inner faces of the plates. Molten weld material is applied in such spaces for welding the bolts to the plates. A thin, hard coating of metal, such as chrome plating, is applied over the liner plate inner face and exposed weld material at the countersinks. Thereafter, the liner plate is removably fastened upon the inner surfaces of the flask frame by extending the bolts through the bolt holes in the frame wall and securing them in place with suitable nuts.

Abstract: A relatively hard sand cake, containing a metal casting cavity, is formed in a flask comprising cope and drag frame sections by filling and compacting sand in the drag against the drag half of a cavity-forming pattern, then arranging the drag with the cavity opening upwards, applying the cope upon the drag and filling and compacting sand in the cope against the cope half of the cavity-forming pattern. The sand-filled cope is lifted from the drag for removal of the pattern and is re-applied to form the casting cavity in the sand cake. Next, selected wall corner joints of both the cope and the drag frames are separated and opened to laterally expand the walls of the frames away from the sand cake surfaces. This releases the sand cake from the cope and drag so that it may be removed from the flask for later casting molten metal in its casting cavity. At least two of the corners of each of the cope and drag frames include a separate corner piece against which the adjacent ends of the frame walls are abutted.

Abstract: Small quantities of dirty oil used in industrial facilities, such as hydraulic fluid, lubricating oil and the like, are reclaimed by placing a batch of such fluid in a relatively small, vertically axised tank having an elongated, transversely arranged, low-temperature heater located a distance above the tank bottom. The heater causes the fluid to generally circulate upwardly and downwardly in closed loops within the tank portion above the heater so that foreign particles and water gravity-settle into the tank portion below the heater. Transversely arranged rows of permanent magnets located in the tank above the heater attract and immobilize magnetizable ferrous particles carried by the fluid. After a period of fluid circulation, the cleaned fluid located generally above the heater is pumped out of the tank for re-use.

Abstract: A flaskless sand mold is formed in vertically aligned, sand-filled cope and drag flasks having a pattern board arranged between them so that pattern portions mounted upon the board extend upwardly into the cope and downwardly into the drag. The sand in the drag flask is supported upon a vertically guided platen which covers the bottom of the drag flask, and the cope is covered with a squeeze plate. The sand fillings are compressed against the pattern board and the pattern portions by the platen and squeeze plate to form compacted cope and drag sand molds with aligned cavities. Then the platen, supporting the drag sand mold, is lowered a short distance while the drag flask is held immovably against the cope flask. Thereafter, while the platen, with the drag sand mold, continues to lower, the drag frame is simultaneously lowered into a rest position upon a track-like support.

Abstract: A sensor used for detecting the passage of vehicles over a roadway is formed of a force sensing variable resistor which is embedded in a resilient, rubber-like strip that is molded around the resistor within an elongated sheet metal channel. The channel is sized to fit within a narrow saw-cut groove across the roadway, so that the strip exposed surface at the open top of the channel is exposed at the road surface for contact by the tires of passing vehicles. The resistor is formed of a printed circuit having a pair of separated conductive stripes with a repetitive pattern of gap areas between them, and a sheet of variable resistance material overlying each of the gap areas to form conductive shunts between the printed conductive stripes.

Abstract: A relatively hard sand cake, containing a metal casting cavity, is formed in a flask comprising cope and drag frame sections by filling and compacting sand in the drag against the drag half of a cavity-forming pattern, then arranging the drag with the cavity opening upwards, applying the cope upon the drag and filling and compacting sand in the cope against the cope half of the cavity-forming pattern. The sand-filled cope is lifted from the drag for removal of the pattern and is re-applied to form the casting cavity in the sand cake. Next, selected wall corner joints of both the cope and the drag frames are separated and opened to laterally expand the walls of the frames away from the sand cake surfaces. This releases the sand cake from the cope and drag so that it may be removed from the flask for later casting molten metal in its casting cavity. At least two of the corners of each of the cope and drag frames include a separate corner piece against which the adjacent ends of the frame walls are abutted.