BOROUGH FURNACE

Skilletron 2.0 Update

Admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:46:12 +0000

Skilletron 2.0 is nearly reading to start cranking out skillets. As you can see in the videos below, the main construction is finished, and the furnace certainly burns the dickens out of whatever gets in its greedy little mouth. We had hoped to begin pouring bottle openers on Labor Day. After having to build a new awning to block the rain, we discovered that the waste vegetable oil is just not burning as efficiently as it should. In short, we have to improve combustion by pre-heating the vegetable oil and atomizing the fuel better. It does put us several days behind our production schedule, but we built an experimental waste vegetable oil fueled furnace, a few adjustments here and there are going to happen. Once those changes get made over the next week, we are all set to pour iron!

More exciting news, if anyone is close to the Syracuse area, we will be doing public pouring at the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. Keep an eye on the website for dates starting later this month.
Add as an added bonus, a video of our sand muller mulling:

The Company

Admin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:41:30 +0000

In 2010 we founded Borough Furnace to…

~~What We Make~~
Cast Iron.

~~About the Founders~~
Jason Connelly …

Campfire Cooking & Canoes

Admin — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:11:19 +0000

Over the weekend we took some skillets, some friends, and a canoe to Hunter Lake, NY for a little R & R before diving headlong into final push building the new foundry. The trip also gave us the opportunity to try out the skillets over a campfire. Not only were the fish perfectly cooked, they looked good cookin’. Check more pictures from the trip after the link.

We’re good at making skillets, we’re learning how to canoe:

Core77 Design Awards, Award.

Admin — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 18:21:00 +0000

We’re pleased to announce that our Frying Skillets was honored in the First Annual Core77 Design Awards with a ‘Notable’ in the Products/Equipment category. It’s exciting to be included in such an amazing bunch of winners, check them all out here. You can see our entire entry on the Core77 site, including a short video with John showing off the skillet. The judges had a lot of great things to say about our skillet but our favorite quote might be from Rama Chorpash, “Perhaps this is the start of a second Iron Age?” We hope so, Rama. Read more about the Awards after the break.

ABOUT THE CORE77 DESIGN AWARDS
Recognizing excellence in all areas of design enterprise, the Core77 Design Awards celebrates the richness of the design profession and its practitioners. For our inaugural year, we present 15 categories of entry, providing designers a unique opportunity to communicate the intent, rigor and passion behind their efforts. From client work to self-initiated projects, entrepreneurial to pro-bono engagements, we embrace a wide diversity of design enterprise: commercial, cultural, social, environmental, or discursive. We welcome projects in all these spheres and honor the time, effort and quality of the endeavors, no matter their provenance.

ABOUT CORE77
Since 1995, Core77 has served a devoted global audience of designers ranging from students through seasoned professionals. Core77 publishes articles, discussion forums, and an extensive event calendar in addition to hosting portfolios, job listings, and a database of design firms, schools, vendors and services. Core77 also provides a gathering point for designers and enthusiasts alike by producing design competitions, lecture series, parties, and exhibitions.

A Kickstarter Success!

Admin — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 16:11:58 +0000

It’s been an awesome month watching support pour in from all across the internet. Designers, foodies, chefs, beer lovers, iron groupies, friends and family, thank you all SO MUCH for backing our business. An extra special thank you to J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at Serious Eats for the thorough (and glowing) review that no doubt had a huge impact on us reaching our goal. We overshot our goal by nearly $7,000!

Of course, now the real work begins. We’ve been prepping digital files, securing our new space, stockpiling scrap iron, building some parts of the foundry, and more. Soon (after a pesky 3 week wait while funds are transfered) we’ll start construction on our new iron furnace, aka Skilletron 2.0, create tooling for molds, and order a truck load of raw materials to start making our Kickstarter rewards. Our hope is to be fully up and running and ready for larger scale production in time for the holidays!

There will be plenty more updates to come as we build the foundry and start producing skillets. Again, we cannot thank our Kickstarter backers enough and we can’t wait to send out the first batch of skillets. Ok, we’re off to break up some scrap iron.