Lost wax – The ceramic shells were tidied up around the neck/opening. The piece was then placed upside down in kiln that allowed the wax to melt out.
Curing – Once cooled & checked over for any cracks, these are heated up again and cured – preparing them for recieving the molton Bronze. Whilst hot, these are placed upright in the pouring pits, supported by sand (the tin foil ontop stopped any sand from accidentally getting into the mould).
Bronze pour – the bronze ingots are heated to 1900 degrees in the crucible & furnace. There are various methods depending on the scale of the equipment at foundry and size of the crucible/work being made. At Scartworks, the pour is done manually by two people so there is a really specific & careful choreography that we took to pour the bronze.
Devesting – Once the bronzes had cool enough they were removed from the pouring pit. Then followed ‘devesting’ the bronzes by breaking off the ceramic mould.
As much as possible was chiselled off at this stage before sand blasting off the remaining pieces. Removing all traces of the ceramic shell was really important before reassembling the bronze.
