LoL....reminiscent of the Alien movies. It's a very impressive sculpture, and wow, lot's of work and still plenty to go for the finished product. Are you going to shell and cast one leg first or just go for it? Here's to wishing greatest of casting success. Looks like 100lb of bronze and ~75lb+ when finished. Is that about right? Best, Kelly
I thought about 8 lbs per leg judging by the volume needed to pour a leg. The body will be maybe 16 lbs? The sprues are going to be heavy as hell since they are so thick. I may not pour them totally full. I think certainly 80 to 100 lbs. I can probably cast this in 3 pours. 3 to 4 tentacles at a time and then the body last. Going to start coating them. But I want to mix up a fresh batch just to be sure. Gotta dig up he mixing instructions from somewhere. Anyone have remets slurry instructions handy? Edit Here they are. Unfortunately I don't have 22 hrs to wait or a slurry machine so meh. They don't specify how long to wait between dunking it in the slurry and adding sand. Also, that's interesting the last coat has no sand. Hmm I've never done that.
I do the last coat sans silica....sometimes. The only thing I've noticed with that last coat is it makes it harder to drill vent holes. Necessary? doubt it. Keeps the garage and inside the kiln a little cleaner, kinda locks in that last layer. Did you ask Doug if he's onboard (pun intended) with this thing adding that much weight to the wheel? If you gotta put that thing on a diet, now is the time man! I read that remet paper a long time ago and said WOW. I'll never complain about opening my bucket ever ever again. Now if only I can just get one again. Just noticed Remet ALSO says blow off loose silica. Keeps the PH correct. That 10-30second dunk time is Dwell time. Never paid much attention to that one.
Interesting. I'll blow off the sand then before dunking. Just weighed out the tentacles. They are 500 g each. So that's 4 kg total wax for the legs times 11 for bronze gives me 44 kg bronze legs with the sprues and pouring cone. The octo was too heavy for the scale so I'm unsure how much it is. Maybe 2.5 kg? Here is what he said about the weight part.
Man I'm mixing it according to their directions 1:1:1. Mixed 35 lb slurry 35 rp1 and 35 rp2 and its like concrete. It's not liquid at all. Can barely move the stuff. They said it becomes more liquidy with time. But maybe that's with an auto mixer? Theres no way I can use it this thick and no way I'm stirring it for 8 to 12 hrs. Maybe I should just add more liquid binder to thin it down? What gives...?
The instructions say by weight. Did you put the water in the bucket and add the other stuff??? OR powder then water?
This time I followed the directions exactly. But I think I may have slightly under measured the binder. I added 3 lbs more binder and it fixed the consistency. I coated the first batch and I have to say the first coat looks different from how it normally is. It feels better than normal now. Weird. I usually grab an equal amount of rp1 and RP2 then add liquid to that until I like the consistency I get. But this time I measured liquid out then added rp1 slowly and then RP2 slowly. Seems to be better. But I'll know for sure when I cast it. Anyway, pictures!
It's still not dry. It's been fricken 7 hours now. This is unusual. Usually the first 2 coats dry within 2 to 3 hrs. Maybe the improved slurry quality and thicker first coat means the drying time increases? Not sure how else to explain it. I'll try get up tomorrow early and start coating. I need to get 3 layers done tomorrow. It should go much faster on the 3rd layer onwards when I can use a fan to dry it out.
7hrs??? Is it raining there? 100% humidity? If it's not dry in the morning, you're screwed. I wonder why that stuff doesn't have the idiot proof yellow stuff in it?
Well its dry now. I'm responding the stuff. It sediments out over night. I really need to build a mixer at some point. It has indicator in it, but it's the first coat so it's hard to see. I'll add a little more indicator liquid for the next few coats. I probably didn't add enough. Suspenda slurry is nice and convenient but super expensive by comparison. 200 shipped for a 5 gal pail? I bought enough material for 62 gallons of slurry for 635 total. That's around $10.50 a gallon. If you bought 62 gals of suspendaslurry and had it shipped it would be $2500 ($40/gal). So even though it's a hassle sometimes it's worth it to this poor student Haha. Especially when I'm using like 10 gallons per sculpture.
2nd cost is on. I added more indicator dye. Should show up a bit better now. I also set up two fans blowing away from the shells. This way they suck air away from the molds and blow it across the garage. So the shells aren't being blow onto, just removing the damp air around them to help dry them a bit quicker. I'm still really impressed by the difference in slurry consistency I see with the proper method of mixing it. It's quite a lot better. I'm looking forward to burning it out and casting. I think it's going to turn out stronger with less shell breakages than normal. I want to see how much if any spalling I get. That was the main issue I kept having with my old slurry.
That's looking better. I'm not sure how you are blowing through 10gallons of slurry for one piece! I see my bucket FINALLY showed up this morning. I'll try to keep a better track on usage, but I know I made a lot of stuff from that last pail I had. Barry down in Baton rouge buys it by the drum and the price per gallon drops pretty good. Even he doesn't go through drums at your rate and he pumps out a lot of bronze. I know with my first coat I generally wait 6-8hrs as it's the most important layer. I can see it taking a bit longer because you don't have a previous stucco layer drying out the new stuff. I find it funny to see the different ways people dry shell. Some suspend pieces while others toss them on a rack. I stucco in the garage and move inside the AC to dry. If I left the pieces in the garage, they would melt and fall apart. Not much green strength that's for sure.
