Salvage store fact of life: sometimes nobody wants it.
The RE Store exists to keep good materials in circulation – and in most cases our customers are happy to bring home the building supplies we work so hard to acquire. But occasionally, items are stagnant – material sits for months, even years, without hope of reuse.
Such is the case with a handful (okay, a truck full) of cast iron sinks and bathtubs in the Seattle store’s back lot. The bathroom fixtures had seen their day – rusting beyond repair, the heavy items were going nowhere.
Enter Pratt Fine Arts Center. Pratt wanted exactly what nobody else did – rusting enameled iron about a half-inch thick – for their newly launched iron casting class. Sculpture Department Manager Scott Ball and Instructor Alair Wells picked up two truckloads of cast-off cast iron bathtubs and sinks from the RE Store for a special iron pour on August 21, 2010. Scott describes the salvaged tubs and sinks as the preferred medium for casting. When melted, the enamel coating rises to the top and keeps oxygen out of the mix.
A crowd of over thirty people gathered at the Pratt Fine Arts Center’s foundry to witness the transformation. The best part? Everyone left with a one-of-a-kind sand casting, and the sinks and tubs found their way home.