One of the last things I got into in college, that I wish I still had the ability to do now, was bronze casting. It’s one hell of a long process but it’s so very rewarding in the end. To think, these things I made will invariably last forever, unless they’re melted down on purpose that is. That’s just not something you get with graphic design.

Now, unlike a good student, I didn’t document every step of my last project, but I did take a few photos that someone out there might like to see:

The front and back of original clay sculpture. You can see from these photos that there were quite a few undercuts, which initially drew my concern, but I managed to mold it with only a single shim line around the object.

The finished two-piece mold. Hard plastic shell surrounding a soft rubber. This plastic and rubber mold was very easy to create and is very light in comparison to a plaster mold.

Two waxes awaiting surface finishing and spruing. I had to close the “tip” of each heart where the wax was poured in, filled any air bubbles with disclosing wax, fix any imperfections from the molding process, put a few vents and bridges in, and cut out a window in the side to allow the investment to fill the inside of the mold.

Here’s one finished wax with a spru system. This was the only one to have one heart off of one cup. The other six hearts were sprued in pairs, that is, two hearts per cup. It was a pretty simple spru system, with only two sprus off each heart.

These are the hearts I managed to finish before school ended. I have four more hearts that need to be finished; investment removed, ground, welded, and patinated.

Each heart is actually quite heavy, and they size in at about 7″ from tip-to-tip.

You can see this project in my portfolio.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 9:34 AM and is filed under Creativity, Personal.