When casting a “bronze” piece, the 1st thing one has to do is get their “mold” ready for pouring.
The 2nd thing one has to do is “heat” more than enough liquid bronze to fill the “mold” cavity “full to the brim” because you can’t do a “2nd pour” on the same piece.
Thus, you always have a quantity of liquid bronze remaining in the “pouring” ladle after the “mold” cavity has been filled.
Thus, the question, ……. “What does one do with the liquid bronze remaining in the “pouring” ladle?”
Well “DUH”, …. you dump it out because you don’t want it to “harden” in the ladle.
And iffen you “dump it” in/on the same place as you did the last time, the latest batch will likely “weld” itself to the previous batch before it hardens up.
And looking at the 1st or 2nd photo above, ….. you can almost count the “number of times” a ladle of “excess” bronze was “dumped” during a work shift/day.
Believe it at your own risk, …… cause it’s just the result of my “logical reasoning”, given what i see via the pictures.