[sudo-discuss] wax into bronze

Wed Jul 30 17:04:21 PDT 2014

Thanks for writing all that out, Tracy.  I am definitely confused (hence
wanting to learn more!)

Anca.

On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 4:59 PM, Tracy Jacobs <kinetical at comcast.net> wrote:

> Anca et Al,
>
> I can do that, I have an abundance of Victory Brown microcrystalline
> sculpture wax I can bring in and show you how  to work with it.  It’s
> pretty simple.  It’s a good way to get started with metal casting, because
> it’s very direct, and when you’re done, you have a wax model ready for
> melt-out.  I think the person who wrote this paragraph below might be
> confused about some things.  Lost wax is a very long labor intensive
> process, and the cost of a foundry casting is more from the many (wo)man
> hours of labor involved than about the price of the metal.
>
> One common point of confusion about the process comes from there being two
> different stages where a mold is made around your model.  Normally, an
> artist brings in a clay sculpture or even stone, wood or metal, that they
> want reproduced.  Normally, they want to be able to make more than one,
>  like a series of one piece.  So, my job at Artwork was in the mold room,
> where we made reusable piece molds out of rubber (silicon or Polyurethane)
> with a hard outer shell made of fiberglass sheet and ultracal (like plaster
> but stronger).  Here is a picture of a silicon mold like that.  Into this
> kind of mold you pour melted wax, and can produce a great number of wax
> castings.
>
> Once you get the wax casting, that has to get cleaned up all perfect, and
> then a sprue and vent (or gate) system has to be designed and attached to
> the model.  Sprues are like sticks of red wax in varying sizes, with which
> you create a pouring system for the metal.  The metal pours into a cup,
> through sprues, and the air flows out through vents during the metal pour.
>  So you have to build all that in wax on your wax model. In the picture
> below you can see a sword I was casting with a cup attached to a big fat
> pouring sprue, with smaller sprues directing the flow of the metal.  Vents
> are not yet attached in the picture.
> On Jul 30, 2014, at 9:38 AM, Anca Mosoiu <anca at techliminal.com> wrote:
>
> Next step is investing the wax model with sprues and vents attached, in
> another kind of mold, one that can withstand the hot molten metal .  I
> studied this process for nine years in school, running my own little
> foundry in grad school, and then working at a professional Art Foundry, and
> I have never seen a mold that can be reused after pouring metal into it.
>  To my knowledge, they all have to broken off to get the sculpture out.
> The most common type of mold or investment used for this stage of the
> process is ceramic shell.  I have also done plaster/sand aggregate type
> investments, and resin bonded sand.
>
> So, you see there is a lot of work that goes into the process.  Also when
> the metal comes out it has sprues, flashing, defects,  that need to be
> ground off.
>
> When I have something cast at a foundry, I make the piece mold for my
> sculpture myself, and just give them waxes.  They will give you a better
> price if they don’t have to make a mold.  I also take the piece back just
> sandblasted clean, and cut and grind off any extra metal at home.  That’s
> another way to save the workers time and get a better price.
>
> Here is good link about what I’ve been talking about.
>
> http://www.modernsculpture.com/bronze.htm
>
> Also, a forge is different than a foundry.  A forge is for blacksmithing,
> an entirely different process.
>
> If you want me to come in for a wax workshop I can, just let me know when
> is a good time!
>
> Tracy
>
>
> I too would love to participate in a wax carving workshop, and a
> mold-making one as well. And I would love to learn more about bronze
> casting.
>
> tl;dr below:
>
> I know someone who's a sculptor, and she talks about the expense of
> working with bronze - both in terms of the cost of materials, and the cost
> of operating a forge.  She also talks about how incredible it is to work
> with FIRE and melt metal, which makes it sound really amazing.
>
> There's a fair bit of time involved in preparing the mold for complicated
> object so that it can be cast properly.  The lost wax casting method
> involves making the wax object, putting the mold material around it,
> drilling holes in the mold where the metal gets poured in, and then melting
> the wax out.  If you plan to make a one-off piece, you break the mold after
> pouring the metal.  Otherwise, you have to know how to cut it so that it
> can be removed from the cast object (e.g.if you have parts that fold in on
> themselves).
>
> I was curious, so I went online to see where one might buy the raw metal
> for casting.  Bronze is apparently about $15/lb (
> http://www.mcmaster.com/#red-metal-ingots/=t29up6) from an industrial
> supplier, but I found it cheaper through eBay (12lb ingots for $90 + $20
> shipping from the east coast).  It contains copper, which at the moment has
> a pretty high market value (and is a reason why people steal copper wire,
> statues, and things).  People buy leftover bronze from machine shops, but
> there are issues with mixing different kinds of bronze alloys together.
>
> Woo!
>
> Anca.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 12:06 AM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
>
>> I will have to ask about pricing, but perhaps we can make something so
>> awesome that they will decide to make it "on the side" so that they can
>> sell copies of it for their own profit.  Think something immensely useful.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 30 Jul 2014, Marc Juul wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 9:32 PM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
>>>       yes the place I got the robot from is a foundry that makes
>>> seriously the most beautiful bronze sculptures / statues (no size
>>>       too big) that i have ever seen ever.
>>>
>>>       and one of their people visited sudoroom and liked the place.  If
>>> we made someting out of wax that was beautiful, we could
>>>       talk with them about turning it into bronze.. or a negative that
>>> could make many copies.
>>>
>>>
>>> My experience with professional bronze casting is that it's super
>>> expensive! Are they willing to give us a hefty discount or what? I'd be
>>> interested if I knew it could be made into bronze for sure without
>>> breaking my/our budget.
>>>
>>> --
>>> marc/juul
>>>
>>>       On Tue, 29 Jul 2014, Vicky Knox wrote:
>>>
>>>             Wax into bronze?!?!?!!?!?!?! :D I love chose your own
>>> adventure email threads. I just clicked on the "..." on the
>>>             sentence: "Also the people who sold us the robot can turn wax
>>>             into bronze..."
>>>
>>>
>>>       _______________________________________________
>>>       sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>       sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>>       https://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>> https://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> -=-=-=-
> Anca Mosoiu | Tech Liminal
> anca at techliminal.com
> M: (510) 220-6660
> http://techliminal.com | T: @techliminal | F: facebook.com/techliminal
>  _______________________________________________
> sudo-discuss mailing list
> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
> https://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>
>
>

-- 
-=-=-=-
Anca Mosoiu | Tech Liminal
anca at techliminal.com
M: (510) 220-6660
http://techliminal.com | T: @techliminal | F: facebook.com/techliminal
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/attachments/20140730/80a31815/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: sprues.jpeg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 578544 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/attachments/20140730/80a31815/attachment.jpeg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Photo0573.jpg
Type: image/jpg
Size: 540475 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/attachments/20140730/80a31815/attachment.jpg>