Crux

Before polish: top is the work, left is bronze, right is cold cast bronze

After some test polish:


Ok... I did less than an hour on the wheel with the black bar, I need to practice a lot more...but wow....


I focused on the upper body, did a little work on the loins and legs, and ignored the feet for contrast:

I will try some more with this later. I had to dig up a grinder my Pater gave me a couple of years back, my shop grinder is 3/4 and the 1/2 buffing wheels do not fit.

 

Zap, I have had heat issues in the past, this time I cooked it until it didnt stick to rebar, then let it go 20 more minutes before pouring. It was HOT.

 

That looks plenty shiny. Don't go overboard or it will look like plastic junk. It's perfect as it is!

Everdur is the common name used by the art crowd for silicon bronze. If he's getting it made in toronto, it probably won't have the stamp. Just be sure you can match it when you buy a tig machine down the road. Speaking of machines. If you are looking for a good machine that will do more than you will need on the cheap, check this thing out. It's chinese, but guys seem to be having good luck with it. Sooner or later, if you keep this bronze thing up, you will need a DC machine and need to learn this super helpful skill.
Seriously, this is SUPER CHEAP and I've seen the older model in person. It's a lot of bang for the buck. They've listened to customers and have improved a lot over the typical chinese rigs.
https://ahpwelds.com/product/ahp-alphatig-201xd-pre-order-eta-shipping-november-252019

 

I keep wondering how hard it would be to split the two fingers on his hand so Jesus is giving the "Victory" sign.

 

Yeah, that would probably be too hot. Have you heard about the swirl yet? You can watch the surface of the bronze and you will see a swirl happen. It's very subtle, but almost looks like oil separating in the surface of the bronze. That's when I pour. I learned this trick from Barry. What it is I have ZERO CLUE, I just know it works.

 

Actually the hand is in an ontological symbol, he is in essence signing 2 and 3, denoting his 2 natures human and devine, and 3 persons: father son and holy ghost.... now you are going to see it all over art.

And it would be really easy to do when in wax form.

 

Any videos on someone using it, unboxing etc?

I know how to mig and stick, but Tig is to new fangled for me.

 

IF you can stick, you can tig. YT search alphatig, plenty of boring unboxing videos on it. You'll need a 125cfm bottle, some gas lens, tungstens and some filler rod. Figure about a grand all in.
You'll need a steel table to work on. I don't have much room so I've got a 3ftx3ft piece of 1/4" steel I work on and a good light. Park a comfy chair at the table and go for it. The hardest part when learning is using your foot to control the heat. Think of it like the gas pedal, you light up, hold until you have a puddle and dab your filler, repeat. With bronze you actually will hardly want to melt the parent bronze. Truth be known, it's actually tig brazing. You'll heat the area you want the bronze and dab the filler to build it up or attach stuff to it. Heavy stuff I go for full penetration. On thin bronze stuff, too much heat and it sinks and your screwed. You'll figure it out pretty fast. It's not hard at all. From there, you already know bronze is easy to grind back to shape. I like little diamond balls or metal burrs. Nothing expensive, the cheap junk on fleabay works just fine for me with a dremel.

If you already have a stick welder, you can make it tig for just a few hundred bucks. But for 690$ whats the point? With a conversion rig, you'll miss out on the pedal and waste tons of argon. That's other thing. 100% argon ONLY. No mig mix, no co2, just ARGON! You'll see some guys mix helium with argon when they run out of amps, but that's pretty rare. The other benefit of this machine, IF you ever decide to weld aluminum, this machine has good AC features and you can weld aluminum too. Remember DC for everything and AC for anything with aluminum in it. I've tried welding sil-bronze with AC, it will do it, but I don't like it. The noise is annoying and the cleaning action seems non existent to me with bronze.

 

Cool. What was his current price per lb? And shipping? It changes based on the spot price of copper. I need to get some soon too. The octo used up 58 lbs that I'll need to replace. You should ask him to send you smaller bars so you don't have to cut them for your crucible unless you're using a huge crucible?

The everdur from him color matches exactly with the silicon bronze rods sold at airgas/praxair, even with patinas. Just be sure you buy the rods that don't have zinc in them or it will screw your welding up. I've even tried silicon bronze rods from ebay and they matched as well.

 

Thanks for the symbolism explanation, so I guess a V sign is totally going to send the wrong message symbolically.

 

The 'V' sign comes from when the English were shooting at the normans with a bow and arrow, the two fingers signifying the strength in the bow string hand, at least that is what I'm lead to believe and used as a taunt. I can't add anything else constructive to this thread so I'll lurk quietly ')

 

Yes the 'peace' hand signal /V for victory would be modernisticly cliche.

 

From what I heard, if the bowmen were caught they would have those 2 fingers cut off so they couldn't shoot anymore. So then the archers started pulling the V sign to piss off the enemy.

 

Put an OK in his hand. It will drive the sjw's absolutley bonkers!

The Brits use the V sign I guess as Victory. Started with Churchill I think... Or it means get it up you.

 

OK, not AK.......(that would be pretty funny...) But the SJW's all say that "OK" actually is WP for white power.
Don't feel bad Jeff. If a he identifies as a she and I don't pick up on it, it's not my problem if someone is mentally disturbed. Next week, they will want to identify as a house plant.
Had someone yet introduce themselves to you with their pronouns? That's when I rolleyes and walk the other way. I have enough crap to worry about in my life than
trying not offend those perpetually offended types.

 

Oh I've done a similar one. Teaching a new student one day, he asked if I had kids. I said no and returned the question. He said I have 5 and one on the way. I acted surprised and said what are you mormon? He said how did I know. He was a good sport and we are friends today 10yrs later. Its hard to get mad when you are flying on a nice sunny morning.

 

I'd heard the bowmen used yew for their bows and would "pluck the yew" in battle. They would have their middle finger cut off if they were captured by the French. So they would raise their middle finger and shout pluck yew!
Ok I'll join Peedee then.

Pete