The pouring of bronze for the Evelyn sculpture.

This entire process is pretty cool, but watching bronze being poured into the shells, well that is something. Photographs don't really do this part justice, so I have uploaded a video of that part of the process.
 

Dipping the pieces of Evelyn

The many pieces of Evelyn awaiting dipping. 

First dip on Evelyn's hand

I ran by the Betz Art Foundry today after receiving a message on my phone. "We are dipping." Dipping is the next part in the bronze process.  Before the foundry could dip they had to gate up each of the pieces.  The waxes need pour cups to pour metal into and gates that will help the gasses escape. Each piece is coated and dipped many times covering both inside and out.  This creates a ceramic shell.  The ceramic shell is where the bronze will be poured, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Next post the burn out and pour of Evelyn Rubenstein.

What now?

I'm working on the few waxes that are here and I expect to receive a call from the foundry that the others are ready. If I am lucky then by the end of the week the foundry will have all of the waxes and they will begin the pouring process of Evelyn.  It is so exciting. For the time being, in between working on waxes, I'm resting my hands and preparing for a meeting when I bring back the photograph of Evelyn.


Oh yes, it took us two days to get the studio cleaned up and it is ready for the next project.

The next step- waxes

Once all of the molds are at the foundry, they pour waxes.  For every mold there will be a hollow think wax created.  Because I finished the arms, head and base these are sent back to me first.   What do I do with these?  The wax stage is one more opportunity to add detail, and clean things up.  Remember the rubber molds were in to parts and so there is also the cleaning of seams.   Once I feel I have all of the pieces clean and that they go together correctly, we will start our process of bronze casting.

The wax arm showing the ring still sitting in the mold.

This is the base that Evelyn Sits on.
I have signed the bottom.
Evelyn will be welded to this base.
The base will then be secured to the
floor of the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish
Community Center. 

The wax head of Evelyn. Still showing the pour cup.

Mold making

Sculpture is cut apart in many pieces.
I like that I can work on the area under
the skirt.

 The mold making process is often done by the foundry.  However, I create my own molds. It takes about 2 weeks of time and is very labor intensive.  I'm thankful for the interns and helpers who have come to assist in the last two weeks of mold making.  My husband kept coming down from his clean office and watching me tug, lift and pull and just shakes his head.  My interns say it is better and more physical than working out in the gym.  The mold making process consists of several steps

clay is used as a pour cup on the arm. 

1. Cutting up- This was already mentioned in an earlier post
2. Claying up- In this part of the process the mold is divided into two halves with clay seams. Pour cups are also added to the mold- This offers a place for the foundry to pour the wax.
3. Painting Rubber- Once the pieces are cut, cleaned and clayed up the rubber is painted on both halves of the sculpture.  Four plus coats are used on each piece. It takes about an hour for the rubber to dry in between coats.
4. Mother mold- the mother mold is called that because it is placed on top of the rubber mold and holds the rubber in place.  Without it, when someone tried to pour wax into the mold the mold would be miss shapen.  Creating the mother mold is hard work.  A very stiff plaster/cement is mixed for each half. I mix my plaster by hand.  It takes about 40 minutes for each half of the mother mold.  Everyone of the molds that I made had at least 2 mother molds- front and back. The chest had three because it was so large.

The legs and two parts of the skirt sit drying after the many
coats of rubber. 

After the rubber is dry, Evelyn's head must have a mother
mold of plaster a  This is a two part process
and very, ver messy.  Good weather means
I can make the mess outside.

Once the mold is complete the clay is taken out of the
rubber and the mold is cleaned.  

The other mold and clay mold of the arm cleaned and ready
to be sent to the foundry .