A wide variety of the Port Townsend Foundry's cast bronze line nearly every surface at the shop

Leader photo by Nick Twietmeyer

Manufacturing has seen monumental change over the last century, in most cases eclipsing previous production methods by leaps and bounds both in terms of efficiency and quality. In many ways the methods by which we produce the daily necessities of life have been completely re-written, but in the case of the Port Townsend Foundry and its own specialty bronze work, the old ways are still very much alive.

Standing in the entryway of an unassuming industrial building on Otto Street is Pete Langley, owner of the Port Townsend Foundry and beside him, filling the tables and shelves inside his shop, sits enough bronze to make an Etruscan green with envy. 

Anchors, cleats, handrails, hooks, hawseholes and hinges — if it’s a fixture on a boat it’s safe bet to say Langley has most likely poured molten bronze into a sand form to make it. But the coppery sun of Langley’s work doesn’t rise and set on the water alone.          

From remaking hinges in a historic carriage house to antique cars, Langley has filled orders for the likes of the Navy, Coast Guard and countless others seeking his bronze fixtures from all across the world.

“We’re in almost every industry,” Langley said. “I can help a lot of people with not only the engineering that needs to be done for their parts, but also [explain] why you don’t want them to fail.”

In 1962, at the age of 4, Langley, accompanied by his six siblings and parents, moved aboard the 76-foot wooden boat M/V Catalyst. A storied vessel in its own right, Catalyst lived up to its namesake, serving as Langley’s early introduction to cruising as he and his family spent the subsequent four years traveling back and forth between southern California and Mexico.

The family later upgraded to a bigger boat and continued their adventure. 

“I got to spend 14 years at the beach,” Langley said. “That’s why I enjoy playing in the sand.”

In a simplified explanation: Langley’s products are the result of an ancient process by which a pattern set to be cast is placed inside a sand-filled frame called a flask, the sand is tightly tamped to ensure a proper impression of the pattern is achieved before the pattern is removed and molten brass is poured into channels in the sand, filling the void left by the now-removed pattern. The casting is done using two halves known as a “cope” and a “drag” (top and bottom) which are placed together prior to the molten brass being poured. Depending on the needs of the end product and the tolerances requested by the client, Langley offers various concentrations of silicon bronze, manganese bronze, aluminum bronze, white bronze and aluminum alloys.        

The staff at the foundry receive specifications, drawings or mockups of an item to be cast and a pattern is then made to the piece’s parameters. Once cast, the piece is returned to the client with minor adjustments being made as necessary. The finished products are also often cleaned up with a grinder and polished before they are sent home.    

According to Langley, the Port Townsend Foundry has established itself as an environmentally friendly operation by seeking out processors which specialize in the recycling and refining of metals, instead of sourcing the raw materials through mining. To that end, Langley said any excess brass bits left on the shop floor or workstations are swept up at the end of each day and recycled, as well.

The foundry’s push for more environmentally-friendly practices also benefit the workers. Whereas larger foundries frequently use silica or chemically-bonded sands in their casting, the Port Townsend Foundry instead has opted to use a mix of olivine and bentonite in their sand.

“For what we do, it’s very environmentally friendly and it’s safe for us,” Langley said. “Some of the big production shops all use chemically-bonded sand and silica sand. Silica sand can obviously lead to silicosis and all those other great things.”

The benefits of employing olivine go beyond just keeping his workers safe, Langley added.

“The olivine sand has no silica in it, it has trace amounts of nickel and magnesium, but that’s the beauty of it — it doesn’t fracture the grain size,” the foundry owner said. “You can pour 2,000-degree metal on it and it doesn’t crack the sand. That allows us to use it over and over again.”

As Langley’s formative years and boating experience while cruising the seas with his family have informed his understanding of the real world applications and necessities of his handiwork, so too has that experience hewn in him a keen eye for quality, sturdy craftsmanship. 

While cruising about 90 miles off the coast of California’s Cape Mendocino aboard Catalyst as a child, Langley recalled when he and his family found themselves caught in the infamous Columbus Day Storm. The 1962 storm remains unmatched by any other West Coast storm of the 20th Century in terms of wind velocity, as well as the 1991 “Perfect Storm,” which later inspired the 2000 film of the same name.

“The steering cable broke, which then meant no steering on that boat in 25-to-30-foot seas with a 10-foot wind wave,” Langley laughed. “The boat was rolling to 65 degrees, slapping the side of the waves, for seven days straight.”

Langley relays the days he and his siblings spent huddled beneath the galley table with survival rations, weathering out the storm, with a beaming smile punctuated by chuckles.

“I can laugh about it now, of course it was terrifying back then,” he said. “But that’s my own personal experience that you don’t want rudders and systems to fail for any reason.”

And it is for that reason that Langley said he and his staff pride themselves upon their craftsmanship and, thereby, the reputation of the Port Townsend Foundry.

“We’re pretty proud of the fact that after all these years we’ve not had anything that’s been a manufacturing defect failure come back.”