Patterns for Casting

Building a ship is a complicated process involving many steps. One that is especially important involves casting the metal needed for individual technical pieces, typically found deep within the ship. Wood patterns, like the ones you see here, create molds when sand is pressed around the shape. The pattern is then removed to allow molten metal to be poured into the mold to create the desired piece. 

Wood patterns help speed up the shipbuilding process by allowing the creation of hundreds of molds in the time it would take to hand-make one. Take a look at the screen on this wall to view blueprints and find different ship parts that were once wooden patterns. Part of the collection of wood shipyard patterns was produced by the New York Naval Architectural firm Gibbs & Cox, ​​while others were manufactured by the historic Ira S. Bushey Shipyard, formerly located on Gowanus Creek, Brooklyn.