I don't pull much anymore but I still love the sport at all levels of competition. My job is a lab tech in a small foundry here in central Illinois. Every once in a while we'll melt in a furnace that'll come up with a chemistry so screwed we pretty much hafta empty out and start over. Sometimes we can pour it on a inhouse casting that's not gonna get shipped nor does it hafta fall into good analysis parameters. Sometimes we gotta empty it into big cavities and send it to scrap which I hate to see because I used to be a furnace operator. Lot of hard work for nothing. I'm thinking if I could get the pattern shop to whittle out a pattern for tractor weights we could get rid of that iron that way and make something tractor pullers could use. My questions: would there be any kind of market for such a venture? How big would we cast em? What configuration would we want? (don't want to get any patent liability problem). Lots of stuff to think about. The end result would be a weight probably lighter than the 100 pounders most people use made out of ductile iron so ya ain't gonna break it, might be a little high in manganese or chrome but they'll work. Obviously the boss ain't let me do this for free so by the time we get a pattern made, pay for the additives and finishing (or not, we all got grinders ain't we?) it may not be cost effective. In other words you ain't gonna pay 110 for a something you can get for a 100 or less on the old interweb. And then there's shipping. That's a lot of weight. I ain't gonna waste the bosses time unless there's enough interest for me to do so. Tell me what you think. DP