The not so lost wax casting.

Ahah you got me. English accent and all.

I bought the sand blasting box and a few other supplies to fix the garage.

Getting a quote on running the new sub breaker and 100 amp cord on Wednesday.

Going to start coating the eagles while I assemble the sand blasting box.

I think I'm gonna build a bigger burn out box with ceramic blanket from a local shop. Boiling that much water isn't a guaranteed thing with my setup

 

I need a few upgrades. My plastic bucket melted down, so after this run, it's going to be time for some improvements. Starting with this hokie setup. lol Its only 102 outside and I cant wait to jump in my chrome gear. Might have to do this au naturale.

 

You got a nice setup there. What's the white bucket thing on the right for? The video camera looks spiffy.

I think it would be cool if we started streaming live pours on YouTube for people to watch on the forums. I might try that for this weekend.

 

I set the camera on top of it. The top was all melted. Isn't that external mic adapter and mic for gp6 a bunch of BS? I'll never buy another gopro if they keep doing that stupidness. Sadly, it's the only way to get decent sound out of it.

Well.... All I can say, it sure SUCKS to fail. Look at the first photo of the rope. Note the little hairy things hanging off it? On the the arch I sprayed it with clear coat and noticed the clear kinda balling up on the hairs. On the circle, I hit them with a low flame before I clear coated it. Now the voids in the metal make me think the rope didn't completly burn out. I dewaxed with a flame and then put them in the kiln and went to 1700 for a couple hours. I pulled the shells, let them cool, blew them out with air on the side vents and got very little ash. I then flushed them with water many times. After they were dry again, I shook them and didnt hear anything inside them. I gave them one quick dip and run them back to 1700 before pouring bronze. That time they were up there for almost 3 hours. Surely the rope to had to be gone? Note how some of the detail came out incredible. I wonder if this had anything to do with the superglue?

 

Possible the rope didn't burn out completely. Or maybe it damaged the shell overlying it as it burned out and a chunk fell off the shell in the damaged areas.

Still looks pretty good though. Too bad fixing it would be crazy time. Might still be good enough to give as a gift unless the OCD monster strikes?

 

If a chunk of shell fell off, it would be a blob instead of a void. Took me a minute to wrap my head around the whole positive/negative thing.. To have a void present in the bronze, I think it would take something to prevent the bronze from filling that area. To me that means some left over rope was occupying that particular space. savvy?
Now how to fix it... Parts of it are amazing.... hmmm

 

Yep, some of the pics are hard to tell if the bronze is going in or out. The color is pretty uniform and that makes it hard to see what's happening.

How many hours did you burn out for? Might need to add another 1 or 2 onto that to ensure a good full burn. I know a lot of other people who burnout wood really go crazy on long burnouts.

 

I have a sneaky feeling you might be right Zap. Total burnout time was probably close to 5hrs. But it was part of 2 different days.

 

Another option would be to pull a mold of these and not have to worry about trying to burnout organics.

 

Zap.. what we need is one of these. Wonder what it costs...? https://www.johnsongas.com/industrial/frn-burnout.asp

 

Well, made another one, walled it up in clay, sprayed it down with mold ease and thought I could grab a silicone mold of the hemp. WTF was I thinking????
The silicone grabbed hold of that rope and would not let go. Here is the carnage. Never would have thought making wax rope would be so hard.
My wife came up with the idea of using clear nail polish on the rope to coat it from the silicone. I should probably run a sample piece before making this motherF#&^#r a third time.

 

Haha oh man I could have told you about that! Same exact thing happened to me with the wood for the eagles perch. The silicone bit into it and would not let go. Luckily the wood was so rotten that it tore the wood out and o was able to sit there and pick off the bits left in the rubber and get a decent imprint.

I forgot to spray the wood with mold release. Maybe that would help with the rope?

Or shellac it so there's a glossy coat and not fibers to latch onto?

Keep at it man! When you get it cast perfectly you're going to feel like a million bucks and it will be a good learning experience for all of us.

 

I did use mold release. This hemp stuff absorbed it. Might have had better luck with booty butter. ?

 

How about coating the rope with WAX??? Seems a little too obvious to me. I'll lose some detail, but at this point, I'm kinda screwed.

 

Sounds like a good idea. Get the wax nice and smoking hot so it puts on a thin layer.


You'll figure it out soon enough!

 

I hope so. I'll run a test tonight.

 

running a trial. 3 different pieces of rope.
1 with hot wax brushed on
1 with nail polish
1 with several coats of watered down Elmer's glue

I sprayed with mold ease and poured on rebound40 . Results tomorrow. (or today)

If this goes T.U on me, I'll buy a polymer clay extruder and make friggen rope
out of little girl clay. The kind of stuff you bake and it gets hard. From there I can make
a silicone mold and go to wax.