rant from a friend whom i forwarded the article:

An interesting article and well done. However, I am a metalworker. I am professionally familiar with every aspect of the work described in this article.

It is difficult for me to imagine a labor that is more intensely difficult and dangerous than casting iron by hand.

I would gladly pay 500.00 American to watch an American white-collar try to handle a ladle of iron in nothing but a lunghi.

The heat from a crucible of molten iron is easily capable of setting nearby objects on fire. It is both dangerous and painful to look at metal when it is this hot, without protection. The sands used to capture the metal are used in great quantities and the silica in the sand breaks down under the heat and creates a potential for silicosis, a devastating respiratory element.

The energy in molten metal is sufficient to generate steam explosions if the poured metal encounters anything that is remotely moist. Pouring metal by hand is ineluctably dangerous. The statement that there are no injuries, never, an obvious self-interested lie or perhaps a wildly divergent definition of injury.

Post casting work, grinding basically, creates a shower of hot sparks that are painful against bare skin and an obvious hazard to people that require their eyesight or hearing, the dust is toxic as well.

That anyone could accept that these conditions are plausible reflects poorly on the acumen of the readership. In short, this is an incredibly dangerous operation. The global "race to the bottom", the constant attack on the wages of labor is directly responsible for conditions like these. The middleman company in NewYork is likely getting 50% of the money for sitting around on phones and forklifts.

New York has a responsibility to the people that labor to make the products they enjoy. I think as we slide into becoming a third world Nation ourselves, and switch to the other end of the leash, the cry for equal rights and equal trade and global fairness will be much, much louder.

I'm Stunned! You mounted a HF tool on a piece of wood. AMAZING!

I've been in this silo. It's in terrible condition (as other posts and pics show). A group of about 6 of us posed as a group of investors interesting in buying the project. He asked for no earnest money. Really, we were trying to sccout out a location for a fundraising party for our Burning Man camp.

The owner, a quirky guy, gave us a multi-hour tour of the silos, generator dome, and command centers. Very impressive engineering, but also a sickening waste of money (it was dismantled only a couple years later when the Titan 2 program started).

The owner was convinced that with the right investment someone could put a multi-story destination resort on it. Pretty hilarious considering it's in the middle of nowhere in central WA.