Due to the nature of shipping delays out of our control, NMIH cannot guarantee transit times or delivery dates.
Create your own design to be cast into iron! Simply purchase one of our specially made hardened sand blocks (known as scratch blocks), take home, carve a design into it, and return to us. The completed blocks must be returned to the front desk at NMIH no later than 5 PM on Friday, October 9th, 2026, so Museum personnel can ready them for our Iron Pour the following evening during Steel Weekend 2026. Weather and furnace conditions permitting, the blocks will be filled with iron around 7 PM on Saturday, October 10th. We hope you come back to watch the pour! After cooling off, the iron castings can be picked up from the NMIH Gift Shop as soon as the following day. Cost $30 per block.
Tips:
-Wear gloves, a dust mask, and safety glasses/goggles while carving. Wash your hands afterwards.
-Carve in a well-ventilated area.
-Carve on a firm surface.
-Scratch the material away. You do not want to crack the block.
-The final iron product will be a mirror image of what you carve, so carve your design, especially letters and numbers, backwards in the sand. Drawing your design on a thin paper, then flipping the paper over, and carving what you see can make the process much easier.
-Make sure to carve no closer than 1 inch from the edge and ½ inch deeper than the existing impression
-Try carving with kitchen utensils (wash before eating with!), screwdrivers, large nails, chisels, or rotary tools you don't mind damaging.
-The sand block will be destroyed to remove the iron. The product you pick up after the pour will be iron only.
-Dispose of any sand removed from the block. It is bonded with resin and not safe to reuse as a toy.