Casting in wax continued:
So, last night in my blog I had got to the point where the mould had been closed, and Mauro had filled a pan of hot molten wax.
He and Carlo then poured the big saucepan of wax into the closed mould, and then the magic of ‘how long to leave it’ took place.
Some of the techniques of casting are fairly easy to learn, most are possible to learn but take a while and will need practice, but there are other techniques that seem like the dark arts and continue to be a mystery to me. The trick of how long to leave the wax in the mould so you get the right thickness seems just one of these.
They know the mould, they know what the weather is like, they know how hot the wax was when it went in, and they do this thing of scooping off the skin from the top of the wax look at the thickness of the walls as it develops.
After a few short minutes, its ready, and the wax gets poured out back into the same pan. Then its filled with cold water to be left for an hour or so to cool and harden fully.
In the meantime, I cast the ‘beak’ bit of my piece which had been moulded separately. It was a lot smaller, but I did it all so much faster, as I now knew how, and was proud that I barely had to ask Mauro much advice.
It was about an hour later when that was done, so we then opened the main bit of the sculpture – it was like being a small child opening a christmas present… and great to see my piece in the lovely dark black wax.
