CHAPTER 6:
The Making of a Kettlebell:
“Iron—Cold Iron—Is Master of Men All!”

Black sand crumbles and reveals hot kettlebells. In an apocalyptic, Terminator-like scene, they glow red among smoke, ash, and deafening noise You cannot help looking for skulls among the mayhem.

Kettlebell making is a primal, manly process that has not changed much in centuries and still depends more on muscle than on technology. The kettlebell starts with a “pattern” that is shaped out of metal to look like a kettlebell. Making a pattern is a complex and labor-intensive process that takes two weeks.

Each kettlebell is cast in a mold of its own. A metal box called the “flask” opens vertically to receive the pattern. Then it is filled with specially formulated sand. A machine rams the sand to pack it and the pattern is removed leaving behind a kettlebell “crater”—steel workers call it an “impression”. The process is then repeated with the other half of the box. The top and the bottom of the mold are put together like a sandwich. The kettlebell-shaped cavity inside the compressed sand is ready to receive molten metal.

A monster magnet picks up iron scrap—among the junk are kettlebells that have failed our strict quality control—and drops it into the furnace. It is hot, 2600-2800 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot enough to be a kettlebell.

Once melted, the iron is poured into a pitcher-like “crucible”. Foundrymen pour glowing iron from this large crucible into a smaller one. Special alloys and inoculants are then added to the “bath”, as steel workers call molten metal.

A hard man pulls the crucible to the conveyor where molds held together with special “jackets” are waiting. He fills each mold with molten metal. The metal is poured through a hole in the sand called the “gate” into the mold and into a cylinder shaped “riser”. The riser is attached to the kettlebell shape and sits above it. It is a reservoir for displaced air and excess molten metal; it is called the “riser” because metal “rises” in it, get it?

The alien growths of the gate and the riser had to be attached to the pattern when it was made. If you did not have the riser, two things would have gone wrong. First, some of the air trapped inside the cavity would be unable to escape from the fast pouring metal. Do you want bubbles in your kettlebells? I didn’t think so. Let the riser take a sissy bubble bath with the displaced gas. The unwanted air escapes from an opening at the top of the riser. How come the liquid metal doesn’t also escape? Because the riser is set higher than the mold, Comrade, and there is not enough metal to climb that high.

The second problem the riser tackles is metal shrinkage. Iron shrinks when it cools. You don’t want a lighter kettlebell, do you? Unless you are a big sissy, no, you don’t. Gravity—now you know another strategic reason to position the riser above the mold—will force extra molten metal from the riser back down into the mold. Metal hardens in seconds and the process of shrinkage and compensation is very quick. The cast iron will solidify within minutes. The end product, the kettlebell, is called the “casting”. The castings are allowed to cool some before the “shakeout”, the process of removing them from their molds. The molds are dumped onto a vibrating conveyor. Black sand falls off to reveal sinister, red-hot kettlebells.

The conveyor takes the kettlebells—with riser-shaped growths still attached—to a man whose job has been done the same way for centuries. He grabs one casting at a time and chops off the riser blob the old-fashioned way—with a sledgehammer. Foundry work is for real men.

The raw kettlebells have burrs--small ridges and rough edges that can rip and shred the skin if left untended. Blood does not phase us but lost training time does.

Enter the Wheelabrator. This powerful machine tumbles and sandblasts the skin-ripping burrs, until the kettlebells are ready for their final grinding.

The wheelabratored kettlebells demand more hard manual labor. The bottoms of the kettlebell will still have some riser growth after the sledgehammer treatment. Time for a husky steel worker to grab each kettlebell by its horns, inspect the bottom, then grind off the excess riser blob. If necessary the worker will grind away any sharp seams between the kettlebell “halves”. It’s done. Enter the kettlebell!

I Iron is primal. Heft a fine blade, a Smith & Wesson, an AK-47, a kettlebell. Your blood will speed up and your senses will sharpen as your warrior ancestors’ have before you. A man cannot help it. Rudyard Kipling was right: “Iron-Cold Iron-is master of men all!”