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Stories

Stories.

Get an inside view — Stories from the Foundry. Each piece of Sun Valley Bronze hardware is made to order, created and assembled by hand in our studios and foundry in the beautiful mountains of Idaho.

POURING BRONZE // Bronze ingots are melted at 2200 degrees in a clay graphite crucible with an induction furnace. The crucible is lifted and aligned over the mold with an overhead boom crane. Technicians pour the molten bronze into a gate so that it flows smoothly into the small channels leading to the parts. Any bronze that is left in the crucible is recycled for the next round of casting. Molds are cooled and the flasks are removed. The molds are broken apart, and a bronze part tree is revealed. The green sand is recycled for future use. 

Casting Sustainability

MOULD MAKING WITH GREEN SAND TECHNOLOGY // Sun Valley Bronze chooses to utilize a cleaner, greener sand-casting process which is water based and completely reused from one casting to the next. Green sand is composed of olivine sand, bentonite clay and water. The patterns are placed in flasks and this mixture is compacted around them in preparation for the pouring. After the pour, the sand is dried out and reused.

Casting Sustainability

RECYCLED MATERIALS // Our art-grade bronze and all of the bronze scrap from our manufacturing process is recycled. The bronze used in Sun Valley Bronze products contains a minimum of 85% pre-consumer recycled bronze content. All of the scrap metal used in the production of bronze ingots comes directly from recycling yards and/or the general public. All of the bronze used in our machining and casting operations is reclaimed and reconstituted into art grade bronze, which we reuse in ingot form.

Casting Sustainability