Just poured my 500th bronze casting today and it hit me

I was cleaning up the shop floor after a long day and my foreman pointed out the job log. I've been at this foundry for almost three years now, but seeing that exact number on the sheet made me stop. It's not just a count, it's every single mold, every pour, every time I got the heat just right. That's a lot of metal. Has anyone else had a moment where a simple number on a page suddenly felt real?

2 comments

2 Comments

spencerw721mo ago

You mentioning the ruined shirts with ochre dust really got me. It's the small, messy proof of the work. My 300th welded seam was the same. It was every burn mark on my arms and every time the bead looked just right. The number finally made sense of all that.

scott.grace1mo ago

Yeah, that "simple number on a page" thing is real. I logged my 100th batch of hand-ground pigment last month. It wasn't just a tally. It was every time I ruined a shirt with ochre dust, every batch that turned out perfect. That number was all the hours at the millstone.