Attleboro gold alloy and casting operations

Tom's late-1970s consulting at the Attleboro gold-stock manufacturer; used to make the "time dominates cost" point — gold processing throughput was constrained by interest cost on the bullion, not by manufacturing cost.

When I first bought my house, just before I bought my house in the late '70s — still live in that same house — I got a job as an assistant professor consulting for a firm down in Attleboro, Massachusetts. These people make — you got that continuously cast bar of copper — they would do that in 14-karat gold. This firm makes probably thirty to forty percent of the gold stock used by jewelers in the United States. This firm is the reason Attleboro is known as the gold capital of the world. A lot of the jewelry in the world comes out of Attleboro. They used to make the gold alloys that other people down there would turn into MIT class rings — the brass rat. That's made by casting to impart a very complex geometry.

113-year-old (as of 2012) Attleboro gold plant, 7 tons/year throughput, in-house continuous casters for karat gold. Tom installed a gold welding machine sourced from a one-man Steamboat Springs machine shop. Used here to set up the die-design redesign story (next entry).

So far as people doing things empirically — once, 25 years ago, I used to consult for a gold company down in Attleboro, Massachusetts. I think I mentioned, they went through seven tons of gold a year, and they had their own continuous casters for karat gold alloys. That plant is still there. It's been there for 113 years now, started in 1899. To make gold tubing — I actually got them set up with a gold welding machine so they could weld karat gold tubing longitudinally. I had to go to Steamboat Springs, Colorado one winter to see the guy who makes these — he just had a big machine shop in Steamboat Springs, and he wasn't building welding machines, he was out skiing. But before that they made gold tubing. What do you use gold tubing for? If you make heavy-wall gold tubing, you can machine it into little circular things called rings — a lot of wedding rings are made with gold tubing.

The two continuous casters at the Attleboro firm that uses more gold than any company in the country. Drives home why continuous casting pays even for short runs when the metal is precious. Connects to the US Mint Sacagawea-dollar contract.

There are two continuous casters right down here in Attleboro. I used to work with a company that uses more gold than any company in the country. They have two continuous casters. In the case of gold, you want as little scrap as possible, so it pays to have a continuous caster even though you may only cast something 12 feet long — a bar of karat gold maybe six feet long. If you only have to cut off one little 2-inch hot top instead of 20 or 30, it pays for itself, even though a little caster like that might be 5 or 10 million bucks.