Abstract: A riser topping gathering system and method are disclosed. The system and method are used in gathering riser topping material from the riser cavities of the cope portion of a mold. A capture hood includes high-pressure air outlets and is connected to a duct system, collector and air moving mechanism. The capture hood is moved into contact with the top of the cope mold portion. The air moving mechanism pulls a stream of ambient air over the top of the cope mold portion while high pressure air is pulsed into the riser cavities through the high air pressure outlets. The pulses of high-pressure air activate the riser topping materials and raise them out of the riser cavities and into the path of the ambient air in the capture hood. The moving ambient air carries the riser topping material out of the capture hood and into the duct system. The air and riser topping material is moved to the collector where the riser topping material is separated from the air.

Abstract: A core box having a core pattern and a self-contained mechanism for physically contacting a core, disposed within the pattern, and forcibly ejecting it from the pattern. The mechanism comprises a plurality of ejector pins which are movable into contact with the core by an inflatable bag disposed in the core box.

Abstract: In a machine for automatically producing flaskless foundry molds by a blow squeeze method between opposed power-operated pattern plates in an opening in a slider which then moves to displace the aperture to a position in which the mold can be ejected, the slider is replaced by two sliders moving in parallel paths on opposite sides of a fixed bolster plate so that two single-sided molds are produced back-to-back, one in each slider. These may be a cope and a drag and may then be assembled together in pairs. Each slider may have two apertures and the molds may be ejected alternately on opposite sides to produce two lines of alternate copes and drags.