Casting

Casting

My father just turned fifteen years, when the family lost its breadwinner. His father, (my grandfather), a blacksmith, worked in Bryansk "Arsenal". Traumatism on the factory was terrible. Grandfather was injured as well. It so happened that the striker could not keep the hammer and gave him a terrible blow. Almost a year after that he was ill and never recovered. Before the death grandfather was moved to the higher ground - he could not breathe in the valley. Soon he died in the hands of his son. My father, after seven classes had to go on the same plant.
Thirtieth year - hard times. Industrialization was in full swing. The plant was casting cannons, using new alloys. The technology was unstable: one day the casting was of a high quality, the other it had cracking. My father, as a competent young man, came to the casting laboratory, where he studied metallography, made thin sections, giving the conclusion about the quality of the casting. Head of the foundry, burly man and usually good-natured, was terribly nervous - defect rate was higher than normal. Commission arrived at the factory and the cracking did not stop. There was talk of a sabotage. "To me, then quite a young lad, head of the foundry, a man of about fifty, talked almost obsequiously, - said the father - what put me in an awkward position. When meeting me he gave the same question every time: "Well, Kolya, how?" Soon he lost all peace, did not come out for days of the workshop, brought a cot from his home."

Another casting turned out to be of a poor quality. Apparently, the laboratory where my father worked reaffirmed this. A day later the chief of the foundry shot himself at his workplace.
2001