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.

Yes, compared to gold it's peanuts. So we can use pure nickel underlayers. We usually use brass — copper, which is cheaper than nickel — but we use cupronickel and a lot of things, brass, and then we put gold on. In fact, Attleboro, Massachusetts is the gold capital of the world. In Sheffield, England, they came up with a way to braze silver to a base material, brass, and they could make silverplate. Now people could own — not sterling silver, but silverplate — dinnerware, and they could pretend they were rich. Then in Attleboro they said, oh, we can do this with gold. That made gold-filled material. There's a company down there used to be called Leach & Garner. I actually started consulting with them in 1980 or 1978. It was the sons, Phil Leach and Steve Garner, of the founders in 1899. The reason Attleboro is the gold capital of the world is because they had the mill that made all the stuff. When I was there, they had three continuous casters for gold. They went through seven tons of gold a year. That's why Attleboro is the gold capital of the world — because you're making composites. Makes you stay out of pure metals because of the costs, for jewelry.

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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.

Tom's first consulting contract after returning to MIT, before the Sylvester engagement. Mentioned in passing. ## Cases referenced in passing

I had one consulting contract with the gold company down south of here in Attleboro, but I was still looking for a little more. A guy down south of here, Bruce Sylvester — his father had worked for Factory Mutual as a metallurgist and then had left Factory Mutual Research to start his own consulting firm, which did non-destructive testing. His chemist was the guy who used to do chemical analyses when the Navy had a Navy shipyard here in Boston, and when they closed the shipyard, that guy went to work for Sylvester, at JG Sylvester and Associates.

Tom worked 10–15 years with the largest gold jewelry manufacturer in the world, in Attleboro, MA. They went through seven tons of gold per year. His consulting project ended after an inventory shortfall in the early 1990s.

I worked for about 10 or 15 years with the largest manufacturer of gold jewelry in the world, down in Attleboro. They go through seven tons of gold every year. They cast it and form it and shape it, and you're going to hear some of my stories that come out of that plant. They had an inventory shortfall once, and my consulting project died with them in the early '90s. But just recently another company down in that area, the second-largest jeweler in the world, came and said they want to do some work with MIT. I went through their plant two weeks ago and they make a lot of platinum rings.

Company processes 7 tons of gold per year. Continuous casts 22-karat sheet for US Mint coin blanks. Mint owns the gold; supplier alloys, rolls, returns; Mint stamps and coins. Used as a high-end progressive-die example. Tom digresses on the 1933 gold standard and Ron Paul's monetary policy.

Most of the stuff I've seen in progressive dies — if you go down to Attleboro, the jewelry capital of the world — I used to consult for a company that went through seven tons of gold a year. They had three or four continuous casting machines for gold, and they make the gold sheet stock, which I think is 22 karat, that they send to the US Mint. They don't own the gold, the US Mint owns the gold. They receive it, they alloy it from 24 karat down to 22 karat, they roll it out into sheets, send it back to the Mint, and the Mint stamps it out into little circles and then coins it. That's where you get these collectors — $20 gold pieces, which actually have about $800 worth of gold in them. They're 22 karat gold. But the Mint is trying to make money. We can't have gold coinage anymore since 1933 or so — right after the Depression we went off the gold standard. Ron Paul will tell you about that, and why we shouldn't have done that. I don't know what Ron thinks about the gold standard, but a lot of people with Ron's type of monetary policy — I'm not knocking that policy. I think we overspend. I think it's going to come back to kill our grandchildren or maybe even us.