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Making Your Art Foundry-Friendly

We often get artwork that is difficult, but never impossible, to put through the bronze casting process.  There are a few simple things an artist can do to make the process easier, therefore less time consuming and less expensive.

To begin, choosing appropriate materials for the original art is important and will vary depending on the desired result.

If the artwork is simple and easy to make or if it is to be a one-of, working directly in wax is an option.  This saves the cost of making  a rubber mold as the wax can be invested in ceramic shell and burned out.  The problem with this is that if the metal pour fails for some reason or you want many copies of the same thing you must then re-create the artwork over and over for each bronze casting.  That is why we make rubber molds of artwork.  With a rubber mold we can make as many waxes as needed to fulfill the required number of finished bronzes.  You do the work once and we faithfully reproduce it many times.

Making a rubber mold of original artwork made of stone wood or other durable materials allows the artist to leverage the time spent creating the original by making an edition of bronzes.  These bronzes if properly done have all of the original artwork's form and detail, down to scratches and fine markings.

Another way to create bronze sculpture is to make a clay model on a sturdy armature.  This allows for relatively fast sculpting and easy modification.  A mold is then made of the clay model.  When choosing this method it is important to use a non-sulfur oil clay because clay containing sulfur will react with the mold making materials to shorten the life of the mold.  The sturdy armature is important so the clay model can be safely transported to the foundry without being damaged.

Sometimes it is easier for a busy artist to make a small model known as a maquette, and let us enlarge it to the desired size, then after artist approval we make a mold and continue the bronze casting process.  This way an artist can be more creative and productive, we do all of the time consuming technical work you make more sculpture.

For a consultation, Contact Us for more information.

Ed Sahagian-Allsopp

10-17-2008
 

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