Practical Work To Do List

Buy saucepan for glass wax Use existing moulds to make glass wax casts Use existing moulds to make jesmonite casts (plaster casts didn’t work) Finish bronzes and aluminium casts Go back to riverbank and find plastic bottle (and other things?) Cast bottle in foundry (?) Use existing moulds to use eco resin? – Speak to […]

Using an Engraving Tool on the Bronze Brick

Process Video: Using an Engraving Tool from Kat Outten on Vimeo. This short clip shows how I have been using an electric engraving tool to work details back into the surface of the brick wherever it was lost due to the casting process. The shiny parts are where I have used an angle grinder or […]

Applying the Patina

A patina can refer to the natural colouration that happens over time to bronze, as the copper in the alloy reacts to oxygen, or it can refer to a man-made process where a chemical mixture is heated onto the surface of the bronze, to achieve different colours and effects. I am referring to the man-made […]

Removing Excess Metal from the Casts

The photos above show the process and tools used for this stage of the project. As you can see I used a clamp to keep the casts in place whilst cutting and grinding off excess metal using a Dremel and angle grinder. I had to remove the cup, and all of the runners, risers and […]

Cleaning Plaster From the Casts

Once the moulds had been poured and removed from the sandpit they next stage was to cut off the plaster coating, with a saw, and then smash open each mould with a mallet. The above photo shows one of the bronze casts, mid smashing. The aim was to remove as much of the plaster as […]

Prepping the Moulds for the Kiln/Setting up for the Pour

Before the moulds could be fired in the kiln, Becky removed the plastic from the outside (that we had used to make the moulds, as seen in previous posts, and the brick video). We then had to cover the sides and bottom of each mould with layers of scrim coated in plaster, to create a […]

Script for the Brick Casting Video

A scan of the rough script/plan I wrote up for my brick casting video, so that I knew what I wanted to say when recording the audio- I should have done this for my midpoint review video but I didn’t, so look at me, learning from my mistakes and stuff! #growth