1st dibs is a great place to see some really high end craftsmanship and this one is no different. Take a look at this pricey bronze chandelier made from leaves. Yes, I agree it's BUTT UGLY! Then I noticed something incredible with it. These thin leaves are CAST then shaped and welded together. Casting them is the only way to get that level of detail. So what's so impressive about that? The only way to achieve that level of detail is by solid block investment. Ceramic shell could get the detail easily, but not combined with the thinness as the bronze would never flow. Here is where you raise an eyebrow. This thing is 3feet in diameter! HOLY F! That's a lot of leaves, almost makes it look cheap at 20k https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/l...7624fd9dd9bbc99930367285c103867dc9fe1b9d9adf9
It's hard to see fine details in that pic. But if they are bronze leaves then they are probably cast in a centrifugal casting machine. Maybe vacuum casting could so that as well. Yeah 20k is a lot. Artists and their name brand stuff. The 20 k is probably for someone's name attached to it. The work involved is nice work, but not very hard. Collect a lot of leaves, invest and cast each one, throw the lot into a magnetic polisher, weld together.
Vacuum is the only way I see this one getting done. Centrifugal casting sucks and is really slow.. I would have liked to see the trees in the flasks. How many leaves do you think they had?? 200, 300....1000? Takes a buttload of leaves to cover 28 square feet of sphere!
Whattt??? Have you seen the crazy detail i was getting with centrifugal casting?? They both require similar prep to make molds.
Detail sure..... But, after you start vacuum casting, you'll garage sale your spinning metal death trap.
I doubt it. If they were, they would have been stamped. Look at this, from the same artist.... https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/l...p-bronze-featuring-wine-leaves/id-f_13424781/ Most definitely NOT STAMPED. The question is How?
Many, many years back someone started a thread on burning out organic materials, leaves, flowers feathers and such. I seem to recall it wasn't a new thing and the results were very good.
Yeah.. Zap did a pair of earrings for his woman out of orchid flowers.... A real leaf is super thin. Lights the size of these takes some serious time to make.
I was thinking plated like baby shoes are, brushed with a conductive material then electroplated. Just guessing.
I really have to fix my kiln. I want to do some more silver casting. Was thinking of gathering a lot of different flowers and casting them in .999% then enameling them with different glass colors as an experiment. I could arrange them into something decorative like the leaf sculpture. I should take a few videos of the casting process. It isn't as long as you think Jason. Just melt metal with a torch for 1 minute, then pull a pin out and the thing flies around like nuts. Dunk in water and the investment breaks itself off in the water. Done. I've seen hairs cast with centrifugal.
