The lost wax casting method is as old as our civilization.
However, if the process has evolved very little over time,
the materials used today enable artists to produce sculptures
of the highest quality and definition.
The process is illustrated below using photographs taken during
the casting of "Listening". |
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From
the artist's original...
....to
the bronze sculpture
as you can see it in the gallery!
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An extremely accurate mold of the original sculpture is executed
in silicone rubber.
To that purpose the original sculpture
needs to be separated into horizontal
planes
in order to get the various
parts of a complex mould.
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Silicone
rubber is then applied,
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and covered by a resin case to keep
the silicone mold in shape.
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These
steps are repeated to produce the other side of the mold.
Then,
once the mold is finished,
a wax copy is taken from it.
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The
wax copy is cleaned of any seam lines or discrepancies to
the original...
...and
then sprued. These sprues will become the channels for the
molten bronze to be able to reach every part of the sculpture.
The piece is now ready for the ceramic coating stage.
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The
sprued sculpture is then coated
in a ceramic shell.
After a few days, once the shell has hardened, it will be
taken to about 1000ºC.
The ceramic shell will become extremely resistant and the
wax inside will melt
and leave a cavity ready
to be filled up by the molten bronze.
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Pouring the bronze... at 1,300°C.
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Once the ceramic shell has been chipped off...
...there is still some chasing work
to be done on the bronze piece, like
sprue cutting, welding, filing, etc....
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...to make sure
that the sculpture looks
exactly like the initial original. |
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The
colour of the sculpture is then obtained
by patination of the surface, most commonly using heat and
chemicals to oxydise the surface of the metal.
And
finally here is the end result!
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