Appreciation post: the old timer who showed me how to pack a sand mold with a broken trowel
I was struggling with a stubborn corner on a complex gear pattern in Toledo last month, and this guy named Frank from the next bay over just grabbed his cracked wooden-handled trowel, showed me a specific wrist flick, and said, 'Kid, the tool ain't the thing, it's how you move it,' and the whole piece came out clean on the first pour.
That wrist flick Frank taught you is everything. I learned a similar lesson about packing the flask corners from an old foundry hand in Youngstown. He used the back of a bent spoon. Those little tricks stay with you for years.