Last year's open house attracted a steady stream of visitors of all ages who were amazed by the wonders contained beneath the building's 25-foot ceiling. They were able to talk to the artists who recreate the wonders of the distant past and learn how molds and casts are made for museums in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Many a child had a photo taken next to the skeleton of a giant reptile from millions of years ago, and people had the very rare opportunity to actually touch a genuine dinosaur fossil.
Research Casting was created in 1987 by company president Peter May, a man who is passionate about prehistory and determined to make other people passionate about it, too. The company began in a garage in Toronto, Ontario, but grew so fast that it moved to nearby Oakville in 1989 and then to Beamsville, a small town in Niagara Region, in 1998. RCI relocated to its new and current facility in Trenton, Ontario, in 2007.
The current facility's 45,000 square feet includes a metalworks shop — essential for mounting heavy fossil skeletons of giant reptiles — plus a foundry, a casting facility and everything needed to restore, mount, sculpt, cast (in metal or resin) and paint anything from rock formations to Mayan carvings to Mastodons.
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