Latest thing here: Paula Fraser.a member of the local sculpture network I co-demonstrated aluminum casting for a few months back, dropped in to work in the foundry for a day and get her hands dirty, see if she maybe wants to add some cast metal elements to her artwork. She has made a bunch of stained glass guitars and other cool stuff, done.some glassblowing and blacksmithing too. She brought a mask pattern along that was still super thin even after she added a few coats of resin to thicken it, and a couple plastic butterflies to try out. I was sure that mask would misrun so after I walked her through making up the mold I rammed up another one just in case. Rolled them over upside down to demold the pattern by lifting it off the cope by the nose so as not to risk ripping the hanging core off the cope trying to work against gravity. I let the aluminum heat up for an extra minute or so for good luck and gave it a shot... Well, neither of them misrun like I thought they would, but on the first mold that pesky hanging core sure did fall! Glad we had the extra insurance as the second mask came out quite nice. Might have happened when I laid weights down on the cope, or maybe when I closed up the mold, who can say. Took me a couple seconds to realize what must have happened when we demolded it though, lol. After all that I think she likes that one almost as much as the one that worked! Jeff
Nice finish on the mask, you did good. I'm curious, did you pour the butterflies first or the mask? That would be a tossup on which one gets the hottest metal first.
The wings are thicker than they look in this pic that she sent me when I thought the same thing and asked about thickness. But the one on the lower right maybe gives you some idea. I was relieved when I saw them in person. Definitely masks first! Jeff
That last "core-fall" face looks (from the back) like you attempted to mold in the brain as well Nice work, thanks for all the pics!
More Mrs. Roboto parts! There will be stained glass sections between the castings when it's done. It might not be the same finished piece the mask ends up being part of, I'm not sure. But she did decide she liked the brain looking fail mask best, so the perfect one came back to me as a gift. With a sweet dragon paint job! Jeff
I'm surprised she didn't add stained glass eyes to the mask. Cross eyes, one eye, Marty Feldman eyes.
Paula the sculptor lady came back for another aluminum casting day today since it was a balmy -4C out. Not body parts this time, but parts for a metal and glass guitar sculpture. Although I think she plans to cast glass fingers that will be positioned as if playing it. Also there will be stained glass and a neck of some sort. She made the patterns by using some kind of cloth hardening goo and sticking the cloth onto the edges of a guitar, then adding some plaster and (?) to smooth and build up some thickness. Something must not have been all done off gassing before she added whatever she sealed it with because it bubbled up. Not intentional but she was happy with it. Luckily she dropped them off a week ahead of time. Well lucky for her anyway, there were some undercuts on the back side that needed a little bondo and sandpaper That also gave me time to identify and mark the parting lines. And take measurements to build a flask big enough for the big pattern. I have a 12x16 that I figured I could put the smaller piece in. Fortunately I realized I could fit it in the big flask with the other pattern and save myself some work. Laid out where I'd place the pattern on the molding board so I could decide where to put the custom fitted crossbars. I do not want a mold this big to drop out on me! I didn't get a pic of the cope but you can imagine it. After ramming it and cutting the pouring basin I rolled the mold upside down to open it, no sense in trying to lift the hanging core out of those pointy "shoulders" if that's the right word, easier to lift the patterns off them. They came off easy enough though one cracked a little. I was able to repair it. Moved the cope and drag over to the pouring deck separately to reassemble the mold. I can lift and move half of a mold this size gracefully enough but the whole thing was big enough I was glad to have help just turning it sideways so I could get at the sprue. Would have been nice to get the basin near a long side of the flask instead of right behind the alignment pins, but it didn't work out that way this time. 5 gates on the big one was overkill anyway, right? After cutting off the gates and a dunk in the snow (some still visible on the castings here) to save her rubber trunk mat, here's what she took home. Fun day! Jeff
Nicely done. -Casting drive through service. How does she plan to finish the castings? Polish? Best, Kelly
I guess that's what this is now, lol. I assume she'll be doing a bunch of sanding and some polishing. She has her work cut out for her though - she wants to have the 3 pieces (mask, torso, guitar) all completed for a submission in early April, and still has to do a bunch of welding, stained glass, and cast glass. Oh, and it looks like I'll be casting an aluminum head piece too (minus the tuning pin hardware, she has real ones), to go on top of a fabricated aluminum and stained glass neck. Jeff
On top of her recent foundry sessions and all her usual stained glass projects (not all guitars, but that's the most recent stuff), Paula has been doing drive thru playing with fire all over the region for a while now, hiring out lessons on various fun things like welding and blacksmithing and glassblowing/casting too. Maybe I'm a little biased, but I approve! https://www.instagram.com/pau1afraserart?igsh=YTd3aTh0ZTZ2b3Fo Jeff
Quick boulder sculpture update. Nothing new that I did, but David sent me this new pic of his progress. I'll have to go pay him a visit and see for myself soon! Jeff
Here's a profile from a local artist's network about David Perrett (boulder sculptor from upthread) including some casting footage. Might catch a glimpse of me too, helping out in the background, if you watch carefully. Jeff
Back at David's place yesterday to wrap up the assembly of his sculpture. Each stone block is drilled for a few epoxied in anchor pins with texture ground into them and a taper on the exposed ends. Each metal block has matching pieces of tubing welded to it to accept the tapered pins. The blocks for each of the 4 columns just sit with their pins/sockets engaged in their downstairs neighbour's sockets/pins and are held in place by gravity. The bottom block of each column is bolted to the base (loose for now so they can wobble a bit during assembly) and there are set screws under the base to micro-adjust each column as needed. The previous pic was a dry fit, this is the actual assembly. Here are some shots from all sides, before the cap row went on: The 4 blocks for the top row also have sideways pins and sockets with the stone blocks' pins welded to the metal blocks' sockets, so once the other end was glued into the stone blocks, all 4 cap pieces were secured together and will prevent each of the 4 columns from moving. We glued them together on a jig he made for lifting the cap assembly up on to the top of the 4 columns to be lowered into place. Then the jig was unbolted and removed. We had the 4 columns ratchet strapped together to let the glue cure, but we maybe ratcheted it too tight and one of the blocks lifted up a bit. Luckily we noticed and David was able to use that set screw to squeeze the lower blocks upwards to close the gap that had appeared. Then we got out the rags and acetone to wipe up the epoxy squeeze-out. He got glue that is meant for this sort of use (anchoring pins in stone I guess?), but with a long cure time to allow time to adjusting the columns and rows. He's having some issues with his LED gear, sometimes the green lights don’t turn off when they're supposed to. Waiting on some new components and for the glue to dry, then the cap comes off, the blocks get disassembled, and the whole thing goes to the Oeno gallery where David will have to reassemble it. Jeff
Off it goes to the Oeno Gallery in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Gantry crane and a genie lift made loading the stones and base into his minivan an easy job for 2. Hoping to attend the unveiling event on July 5. Somehow, as if by magic, it does not conflict with the Great Canadian Rust Junkie Fest on the 12th! Jeff
David sent me some pictures from the Oeno gallery's sculpture garden. ( https://oenogallery.com/ ). Surreal... Can't wait to see what it looks like at night, all lit up... Jeff
The light is in the base and should shine all the way up? Battery powered? What did he name the piece?
