Hello all, My membership here has just been approved (many thanks for that) so I thought I'd say hello. I'm still very much at the early stages of my casting journey. To date, I have attended some workshops but my enthusiasm has been suitably fired up to the point where I am beginning to equip my own workshop with a furnace and tools etc. At this stage, I plan to work mostly with bronze (or other copper based alloys) and I’m keen to learn more about the history of bronze casting and the methods used by our ancestors. I also plan to develop my skills in my own modern (gas fired) backyard foundry. I have a few projects lined up and have a few ideas for various trinkets I would like to produce. Additionally, as part of this whole process, I have started writing a blog which can be found here http://www.alloysofcopper.co.uk … this serves as a personal journal of my projects, thoughts, and ideas around bronze casting (and generally any other drivel I care to publish). If you’re interested, please take a look … any comments would be welcomed. I also have an Instagram account for posting additional photos … https://www.instagram.com/alloysofcopper/ I look forward to sharing my bronze casting exploits with the community here and hope to contribute to the discussions and also learn a thing or two along the way. Many thanks. Gav
Welcome aboard Gav... You found the right place. I'm a bronze junkie too. Seeing that you are in the UK, you have good options for running lost wax ceramic shell. Now if you are concerned with doing the process as our ancestors did it with straw and cow poop, you'll have to sort that one out on your own.... Large solid block investments are still done (Rasper) but folks do that usually because they can't get the slurry to run ceramic shell. Take a peep at my YT channel, I'm sure you'll find something there that will help you out on your journey. I'll check out your blog. Jason
Greetings Gav. Yup, you'll fit all right! Cool blog. As you've already seen from some of your adventures there's lots of ways to skin this cat. Pete
Welcome Gav. The forum and its members will be a good resource for your journey. Nice work on your blog too. Best, Kelly
Welcome! Read your blog, cool stuff. The workshops you attended sound like fun, many of us here had to teach ourselves with the help of sites like this but with no hands on instruction, so I'd say you're off to a great start! Jeff
Wow! Thanks to you all for such a warm welcome. I'm aware I still have much to learn but hope to be able to give something back too, whatever that may be. Many thanks also to those of you who took the time to look at my blog ... that means a lot.
Yeah.. did you see the price of that thing? I should have gone in the furnace building business? https://www.artisanfoundry.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=35&products_id=210 Site says it will only hold an A5.
Were you referring to the solid fuel furnace or the gas fired one?! The solid fuel one belonged to the chap who I made my bronze knife with. The gas-fired furnace I recently purchased from The Artisan Foundry. I grant it's not cheap but it is solidly constructed and I don't have the means or the inclination to fashion my own furnace. @Jason has already kindly posted a link.
Welcome, lots of great people here to glean information from! I'm relatively new here and to casting.. I look forward to following your adventure!
Hi Jason. Have been watching your videos (also subscribed to your YT channel) ... very informative videos and interesting projects you have there. Thanks for sharing ... I have learnt much already
We aim to please.. Now build something cool! Lost wax is a neat process... it does take a little time to make peace with the wax, but after a while, you'll get it figured out.
Yes, I think some lost wax work will be on the cards at some point but I will be doing sand casting mainly at first ... Baby steps.
