The heavy metal is getting hot at the Colorado Springs School (CSS). In fact, it’s getting downright molten — literally — this weekend at the 30th anniversary Great Iron Pour. According to CSS, they are the only high school in the United States to offer a full iron pouring experience. It is typically something students can only do at a collegiate level. This weekend marks the 30th year of the program, and CSS is welcoming alumni and the public to campus for a special Iron Pour on April 6, to celebrate the tradition.
Students have already been learning and practicing their metal work. In March, the school offered the Great Iron Pour Experience-Centered Seminar (ECS), a three-week program that included students breaking down 1,200 pounds of iron for a pour on March 18. They worked alongside Carolyn Ottmers, a nationally renowned artist whose work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and the United Kingdom. And they created wax and sand molds, assemble a cupola, broke iron, bonded coke, welded and discover the science and art of an iron pour. The remaining 1,200 pounds of iron will be used for the Alumni Iron Pour on April 6, outside of the Carriage House on campus.
For the process, the iron must be heated to 2,600 degrees and carefully poured into molds by teams outfitted in protective gear. The molds are made into art sculptures. Once it cools, the iron takes the shape of that design. It takes about 12 hours to heat the fire hot enough to melt iron.
There is a historic tie for this iron too. The iron being used is from the original boiler of the historic Trianon campus building. The Trianon is the original historic estate built by the Baldwin family in 1909, and it is the stately hallmark structure on the 28-acre school campus in the Broadmoor neighborhood.
The Trianon, originally called the Claremont Estate, was built by prominent Scottish architect Thomas MacLaren to mimic the Grand Trianon in Versailles, France with over 22,000 square feet of 18th-century French architecture. The estate was eventually sold, and in 1961 a group of founding mothers came together to form a private, preparatory all-girls school. Currently, the Colorado Springs School campus serves as an independent school serving students from all over the Pikes Peak region, and it enrolls over 300 children in Pre-K to 12th grade. The original Carriage House now houses the Fine Arts Department on campus, and the courtyard will play host to the Iron Pour reunion.
The public is welcome and will be provided a safe viewing area to watch from a distance. Viewers can watch the ancient process of molten iron being poured into molds as it glows at dusk. And students will be using a lost wax process dating back to 2000 B.C. to create molds for their iron sculptures. A more modern space-age technique of dipping the molds in a slurry and covering them with a stucco process is also being used.
CSS has conducted iron pours since 1994 and offered the iron pouring seminar on a multi-year rotation. You can read student blogs about the Iron Pour and other ECS trips at css.org.
