Ligonier fountain is storm casualty

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Tuesday, February 18, 2003 | Paul Peirce

[Willie Green]

It has wet the whistles of Ligonier residents and visitors

[Willie Green]

There was no photo with the article,
but I was able to find one elsewhere on the Internet.

It's just a small town water fountain,
but it has a lot of "character" and is rather unique.
IMHO, PennDOT should pay the town whatever it takes to fully repair/restore or replace this fountain.

[martin_fierro]

Ligonier -- what a gorgeous little town.

[Wolfie]

Better yet, let PennDOT fix it. They'll end up with $2 million drinking fountain that doesn't work. And it'll probably only take 5 years to complete.

[Willie Green]

Ligonier -- what a gorgeous little town.

It really is.
And it's quite tragic if they lose this quaint little landmark.

It looks like The Trib scooped the Post-Gazette on this story,
all I could find their was a "breaking news" release from the AP.

Snow plow damages historic Ligonier fountain

Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Associated Press

The cast-iron drinking fountain in the middle of Ligonier had offered refreshment to dogs, horses and people for eight decades. It was hard to miss -- until a snow plow lost its brakes and slammed into it yesterday.

"I don't know if we can ever replace a piece like that. It's really a shame," said Jack Berger, borough secretary in Ligonier, about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

The fountain, in the middle of the The Diamond in the town square, had stood along Market Street since it was donated to the borough by a volunteer firefighter in 1921.

Built by Cincinnati's former Stewart Iron Works, the fountain, which still worked, had a small tray for dogs, another one waist high for horses and a tray on top for people. No one was injured in the wreck.

The fountain was removed from the street and was being kept in a garage until officials determine whether it can be fixed.

I think it's COOL that the fountain had seperate trays so horses and dogs could get a drink too!

[thatsnotnice]

The grader's snow blade broke the fountain in several pieces.

I wonder what “several pieces” means… three, five, sixty-five…

"I don't know if we can ever replace a piece like that.

The reason I ask is that you CAN weld cast iron. I can’t do it, but it can be done by someone because I’ve seen old cast iron cane boilers that have been welded several times.

Actually, I saw some people repair a decorative cast iron piece once. They had several big magnets that were probably 6”x2”x1/2” thick. They put the magnets in the inside of the piece to hold it together and tacked them down. Then they ran a bunch of 1" beads along the inside of the cracks. But that was a purely decorative piece and wasn’t designed to support anything or meant to be climbed around on. And you could still see the cracks on the outside when they were through.

If push comes to shove they can always find someone that will make molds and re-cast it.

[Willie Green]

The reason I ask is that you CAN weld cast iron.

A Google Search produced a number of resources verifying that:
The Truth About Cast Iron Welding and Eliminating the 4 Problems of Cast Iron Welding are two.
As an Industrial Engineer, I have also been personally involved with welding cast iron under high-volume production conditions.
It IS very tricky, but can be done.
Yet I'm skeptical about one-of-a-kind repairs unless the welder is HIGHLY skilled and extremely familiar with welding cast-iron. And even then, it's a crap-shoot.

[AGreatPer]

Good find. I've drank from this thing many times in my youth. I guess it was cool. Never gave it any thought.

[Willie Green]

I guess it was cool. Never gave it any thought.

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

[thatsnotnice]

You know, they might have smacked the fountain with their maintainer pretty hard. They might have other problems besides it being broken into several pieces. They may have knocked it out of square or out of plumb and deformed it somehow. It may not just be a case of sticking the pieces back together, but a bigger problem of the fountain being knocked out of its original shape, so the pieces won’t fit right.

I don’t know if you could force something like that back into its original shape without breaking it up more in the process.

[Willie Green]

They may have knocked it out of square or out of plumb and deformed it somehow.

Perhaps, but highly unlikely.
Cast Iron is very brittle and it cracks instead of bending.
I suppose it's possible the fountain wasn't cast as one piece, however.
It may consist of several components that were cast individually, then somehow bolted or pinned together as an assembly. In that case, those bolts or pins were likely made of steel, which could be bent out of shape.