44 over the male mold half 46 any free sand then present in the mold cavity 50 can be cleared to provide a clean mold cavity 50 for improved casting integrity typically the sand is blown clear of the cavity 50 during casting any free sand remaining within the mold cavity 50 will result in a contaminated casting having increased defects and reduced strength since the locator wires 34 will not contact the female mold half 44 the female mold half 44 may be brought into position without any additional sand being released into the cavity 50 molten iron can now be poured into the mold cavity 50 to substantially embed the reinforcement assembly 30 while readily controlling the porosity to increase the strength of the drum 10 the offset shape of the offset contact portion 36 also allows for fine tuning or reforming of the reinforcement assembly 30 immediately prior to casting by positioning the reinforcement assembly 30 over a solid duplicate of the mold the orientation of the reinforcement assembly 30 can be readily checked and adjusted if necessary fig3 is a cross sectional view through the brake drum 10 after finish machining operations are completed the phantom lines show the outline of the raw casting of the drum 10 as shown the friction surface 24 is machined to form an accurate inside bore this involves machining away the contact segment 41 although iron is a superior material for forming the friction surface 24 the minute cross sectional area of exposed steel caused by machining into the offset portion 36 does not produce.