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From Home Gyms to Your Daily Commute, U.S. Iron Foundries Keep You Moving

From Home Gyms to Your Daily Commute, U.S. Iron Foundries Keep You Moving

Nov 16, 2021 Posted by: Blue Lakes Iron Blue Lakes Iron,  Kettlebells,  USA Made

Unexpected Ways Foundries Impact Your Fitness Routine and Daily Life

Whether or not you’re swinging Blue Lakes Iron kettlebells today, products manufactured in U.S. iron foundries—like the foundry where our kettlebells are made—impact your day-to-day life in ways that may surprise you.

 

A Day In the Life

Let’s ponder your morning routine. Can you spot any foundry products?

Your alarm goes off and as you roll out of bed to start your workout, the air conditioning kicks on. It’s going to be a hot one today, you realize.

It’s an arm day, so you grab your kettlebells to work on the one-arm clean you’ve been perfecting. After your workout, you make some sunny-side-up eggs and grab a hot cup of coffee. Looking out the window to the street below, you see a city worker emptying a hydrant to the happy screeches of neighborhood kids.

You head down to the parking garage, hop in the car and start your commute. On the way to work, you stop at a railroad crossing and watch a train pass, then drive past a farm field where a farmer is harvesting hay.

SCREEEECH 

You slam on the brakes to avoid a family of geese crossing the road. As you honk at them, they honk at you.

Ten minutes later, you arrive at work (thankfully) safe and sound. You head across the parking lot toward your building, stopping for traffic at a crosswalk.

And so it begins. In the first hour of your day, besides your fitness routine, you’ve already had at least 10—and likely many more—other interactions with products made at an iron foundry.

How many can you identify?

 

11 Ways A Foundry Touched Your Morning

  1. When your building’s heating or cooling system kicked on, it was running with components made at an iron foundry.
  2. Workout equipment. Kettlebells, exercise bike wheels, free weights and other fitness equipment are cast in a foundry.
  3. You cooked your post-workout eggs in your grandma’s old cast iron pan. Cast iron cookware is made at a foundry.
  4. Fire hydrant parts and valves are made at foundries.
  5. On your ride down to your building’s parking garage, you’re enjoying the convenience of elevator hydraulics made by foundry workers. Although if you had taken the stairs, you’d be closer to your fitness steps goal for the day!
  6. You got in a vehicle with dozens of iron casting parts, including the engine and driveline, to the braking and suspension.
  7. Railroad crossing. The train you waited for uses engine, suspension, axle and brake components made at a foundry.
  8. You drove past farm fields with tractors, implement and harvesting equipment all made from parts manufactured at a foundry.
  9. On your way to work you traversed over manhole covers, sewer covers, and even underground piping that came from foundries.
  10. At the crosswalk in front of your building, you stood on a detectible warning tile designed to help visually impaired people know when they approach a street, and guess what? It was also made in a foundry.

All these interactions, and hundreds more, are interwoven into our daily lives.

 

Why Does the World Need Foundries?

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic shutdown it caused, many businesses temporarily closed. When gyms shut down, fitness enthusiasts shifted to at-home workouts which caused a shortage of kettlebells, weights, stationary bikes and other home fitness equipment.

Unlike gyms, restaurants and retailers, foundries were considered “essential” and most remained operational.

Why?

While foundries don’t make everything that goes into cars, semis, oil rigs, construction equipment and more, they make the key parts that keep all these industries running.

If U.S. foundries had shut down completely during COVID, the disruption to daily life, businesses and supply chains would have been far more severe than what we actually experienced.

It’s no exaggeration to say that if the engines, axles, brakes, housings, valves and more made by foundries had their manufacturing processes halted long-term, the world as we know it could not continue to function. Modern life relies on iron foundries.

Next time you lift your kettlebell, see rainwater draining down a storm sewer, or drive your car, you can think to yourself, “A foundry helped make that happen.”