Students · October 5, 2026
This Year’s Millrace Week Foundry Pour Will Recast Heritage Hall’s Old Radiators
About 1,100 pounds of cast iron pulled out during summer construction will become 400 Porter trivets, poured in front of the public on October 15.
When Heritage Hall’s bathrooms were gutted this summer, crews pulled out 31 cast-iron radiators, some dating to the building’s opening. Instead of going to a scrapyard, about 1,100 pounds of that iron went to the foundry lab in Founders Hall. On Thursday, October 15, it will be melted and poured into molds in front of an audience during the annual Millrace Week Foundry pour.
The pour, held every Thursday of Millrace Week since 1958, is the public half of a tradition that starts with First Forge, the pewter casting new students do at orientation. Where First Forge is small and quiet, the Thursday pour is iron, a cupola furnace running at about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, and several hundred people behind a rail.
What will be made
Students in the metalcasting course have spent September packing about 400 sand molds for a trivet in the shape of the Porter “P,” each stamped “HERITAGE 2026” on the back. Trivets go first to Heritage Hall residents, past and present, who can reserve one through the Alumni Relations office; the rest will be sold for $25 at the campus store, with proceeds going to the student emergency fund.
“Some of this iron has been heating a dorm room since before anyone in that room was born. It seemed rude to send it to the scrapyard. Now it can keep a hot dish off somebody’s table for another hundred years.”
— Gordon Haugstad, foundry lab manager, Department of Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering
If you go
- When: Thursday, October 15; doors at 6 p.m., first tap at about 6:30 p.m.
- Where: the Founders Hall high bay, east entrance
- Capacity: 450 standing; overflow viewers can watch a live feed on the quad screen
- Safety: closed-toe shoes required; spectators stay behind the yellow rail at least 30 feet from the furnace. Children under 12 must be with an adult.
The pour is run by metalcasting students and faculty of the Department of Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering, with oversight from Environmental Health & Safety. The rest of the week’s schedule is in the Millrace Week announcement.
Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. The Foundry pour, the radiators, the trivets and the lab manager are invented; there is nothing to reserve and no iron will be melted.