FredlyFX.com Bronze Casting Page

Welcome to my page about bronze casting. Click on any image to get a larger version.

I hadn't planned to do a whole page on this since I just took the class so I could cast a part I needed for my power hammer rebuild. However, once I got into it, I realized that had I just picked up another expensive hobby.

I'm obviously no expert on bronze casting, and I will not try to make myself out to be one. There are many web pages and books out there that will help you a lot more if you are interested in learning. I recommend that you check out http://backyardmetalcasting.com/ if you are interested in really learning more about the process. He has a very extensive site devoted to all types of casting, and a very comprehensive links page.

What I am going to do with this page is to just post up some pictures showing what Deb and I are doing in the bronze casting class we are taking at Mt. San Jacinto College, and maybe a little about what I will end up doing at my house.

Casting a new brake pad Monday, February 14th, 2005

Here is the wax mold of what I am making to fix my power hammer.

This is how it will hang while being coated with slurry, and also how it will sit while being poured. The piece that looks like it was wax poured in a cup, which it was, will end up being the funnel we pour the bronze into.	Here I put a shot of the original part over it so you can see what I am doing. I am making the new one bigger than the old one so I can grind it down to shape.	After this is all covered in slurry and forms a hard shell over the wax, we will put it in a furnace that is about 1800 degrees and the wax will all burn out leaving a perfect empty mold of whatever we had in wax.

Brake Pad's Coming Along: Sunday, February 20th, 2005

I took more pictures in class Thursday, but my ISP was running too slow to upload them so it slipped my mind until now. Once I had it the way I wanted it in the pictures above, I had to coat the whole thing with mop & glow floor wax. Once that was dry I had to dip it in a tub of slurry, then let that dry, and then dip it in slurry 2 more coats with a very fine sand thrown on afterwards. The next dip used a coarse sand to build up the thickness of the shell faster. When I'm done it will have 8 to 9 coats on it, and will be a large blob. That will be put in the furnace and the wax burned out leaving a perfect empty mold of my part. It's a pretty ingenious process really.

I can't wait till we actually pour. I'll probably be one of the first ones in class ready to cast, so I'll end up having to wait. I'm also making some house numbers for a mail box stand I have planned. This keeps me busy while I'm waiting for my brake pad to dry. Hopefully by the time the class is ready to pour I will have them ready also.

Here is what it looks like after the first 3 coats of slurry & sand. Once it's done, I don't think we'll be able to even tell there are the little blind vents coming off of it.

Brake Pad almost ready to pour: Thursday, February 24th, 2005

The pad is coming along nicely. I snuck in a couple of dips during the week and then got 3 more tonight. I think I will do one or two more next week, and then it will be ready to go.

Below is a picture of what it looks like now after being dipped 7 times. All of the detail you could see before is gone now. The walls are about 1/4" thick now. THey will be just a little thicker when I'm done. It's really getting heavy now too.

Ready to pour. Thursday, March 3rd, 2005

Tonight was the first time it hasn't rained since the class started so we were able to pour tonight. It was very cool. I didn't quite have my piece ready, so I will be doing it next week. Hopefully it won't rain. I decided to do a whole separate page on the bronze casting. I think I just picked up another expensive hobby.

Here is what my piece looks like now with 2 more dips and the bolt removed and the top ground off. I've got a nice thick mould that should work just fine. It will be placed in a furnace with this open side down and cooked at 2200 degrees for an hour and a half. All the wax will be melted out. Then it will be placed right side up in a sand box and then the bronze poured in.

Brake pad done. Saturday, March 19, 2005

I was able to pour the brake pad this past Thursday in class. It came out perfect and I will be doing the clean up on it later today. I'll post up more pics when it is done.

Here it is just after breaking off the mould. Now that I have been doing this for a couple of weeks I am figuring out that I should have just sand cast it and saved a lot of money. I will probably sand cast another one of the final product so I have a spare.	Here is a wide shot of it. The mould material is still in the center.	Here is a shot of what it looked like before putting the mould on so you can compare it.

First pour of the semester. March 3, 2005

2nd Pour March 17th, 2005

I was able to pour my piece tonight. It came out well. There were several nice pieces poured, and it looked like they all came out ok. Below are a few pics. I was involved with the pour pulling the crane boom around as needed, so Deb took the pics tonight. She took a lot trying to show the whole process again. She got some really good ones.

This is just as the burn out oven is opened. The pieces have all been in here for about an hour at over 1800 degrees.	Here is another shot of the oven.	The pieces are removed and blown out with an air nozzle to make sure nothing is in side to ruin the casting.
They are then placed in a sand pit and a piece of insulation and a brick placed on the top of the cup to ensure no sand gets in.	Next the pit is filled back up with sand around the pieces to hold them upright.	Here is a shot of me pushing sand in between the pieces.
Here the crucible is being removed from the melting furnace. I'm the one on the rope moving the crane.	Here it is after switching from the lifting tongs to the pouring tongs.	The first pour is a sand cast mould sitting up on the edge of the sand pit.
Then, they begin pouring the other moulds.	I think this one was a power ranger figurine.	This one was a large sculpture of two elephants.
Here we are pouring mine. It was done last since it had no detail.	Next they poured the last little bit into an ingot mould made of angle iron.	The crucible is now moved back to the other end.
Here they are cleaning out the crucible before setting it back into position.	Here is my piece after I broke off the mould. It turned out perfect.	Here is a wide shot of it. The spru and cup will be cut off, then some minor grinding to shape and clean up will finish it.
	Here is what it looks like now.	I don't think I will do a whole lot more to it other than polishing it for vanities sake.

Here is a pic of what Deb is working on.

Here is her wizard made of clay. She then took 100% silicone caulking and covered it in several layers to about 1/2" thick. Then she pulled off the silicone to get an exact mould of the wizard with all the details. Next, she poured wax into that mould to create her form for the lost wax mold. Next week she will created the spew system and start dipping it to build up the mould. I'll take a few more pics of it as it goes along. I am excited about how nicely it is coming along.

Saturday, May 7th, 2005

It's been a while since I did an update to this page. I figured it was time. We have been busy in class, but I keep forgetting my camera. I actually got a new one now that is much higher quality that what I have been using. I'll bring it next time for sure. Deb and I are planning to pour at least 2 pieces, and I may try to get in a 3rd in sand. This past Thursday she finished her Wizard and an Eagle head. I then helped her with a sprew system and we did the first couple of dips on them. I will stop in the room several times this week to get the necessary dips to make the mould thick enough to pour next Thursday. Then, Thursday evening I may do a piece in sand also. We'll see how it goes.

I took the break pad I made above and used it as a model for a sand casting of it. Doing the sand casting is much cheaper than the lost wax, so I figure this way I will have a spare that only cost me a couple of dollars. Below are a couple of pics of it after removing it from the sand. I still have to cut the sprew off and clean it up. You can see that the corners of the mold collapsed, but I went with it nevertheless because I new I could still grind it to shape. I am planning to spend a lot more time playing with the sand casting since I figure that will be the only thing I can easily do at my house later.

In this pic you can actually tell what it is going to be.	This pic makes it look like a big blob, but I am pretty sure once it is cleaned up it will work fine.

Sunday, May 8th, 2005

I cut the sprew off and cleaned up the break pad today. It turned out pretty well considering it was my first ever sand casting, and I had no real idea what I was doing. I'll probably do a little more cleaning up on it then polish it and seal it with some clear lacquer. In the pics below the piece on the left was sand cast using the one on the right to form the mold. The one on the right was done using the lost wax method.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

I've gotten several dips of Debs two pieces in this week. I will do 2 more tomorrow during the day, then we will pour it in the evening in class. I am going to bring my new camera to class and take some video. I think it will turn out real nice.

Here are some pics of it in process. This will be placed in a furnace so the wax can melt out leaving us a hollow mould that is a perfect negative of our wax sculpture.

Here is the whole piece. This is how it will sit when it gets poured. The bolt will be removed and the top will get ground off to make the opening in the cup.	Here is a close up of the eagle head. Most of the detail is gone now after about 5 dips. After each dip in the slurry we pour a type of sand over it that sticks and becomes the mould when it is dry.	Here is the wizard. You can compare this pic to the one above to see the difference. After a couple more dips there will be no detail at all, and the shell will be about 3/16" thick.

Thursday, May12, 2005

Tonight we poured the house numbers and Deb's wizard and eagle. They all came out looking great. We're very proud of them. Deb helped out on the crew of the pour tonight, and I just took pictures. It takes 5 people to do one of these pours. There are 3 who suit up and actually do the bulk of it, then there is one person on the hoist controls and another on the rope hanging from the end of the crane arm. Deb was on the crane rope. I did things a little differently tonight with the pics because I had the new camera. I took a lot more of them, and I also took a bunch of video. The video clips are only about 15 seconds each, but I got the whole process. Below I will put text links to the actual clips. click on a link and it will open in windows media player. If you don't have it, then you may not be able to see them. I'm not good enough with the video yet to convert them to anything else.

Here are our two pieces ready to go in the burnout oven.	This is Mathew loading the oven.	Here is a closer shot where I've pointed out the drain hole in the bottom of the shelf.
Here is a shot of the wax running out of the oven into a tray. This will eventually get broken up and placed back in the pots inside to be reused.	Here is Deb and a couple of other students digging out the sand pit while waiting for the furnace to burn out all the wax. It takes about 1 1/2 hours.	Here is the melting furnace with an ingot sticking up at the top. It takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours to get up to temp and be ready to pour.
Here is a shot of the plumbing and the blower for the furnace. It has an 1 1/2" natural gas line running to it and an electric blower.	After the pieces come out of the burnout oven they go into the sand pit. Here the guys are packing sand into the empty cavity of the bell so it won't blow out when poured. The sand supports the moulds.	Here is a shot of the jib crane we use. I actually just took this for myself because I want to build one. I think I need to take one during the day.
This is a shot of one of the other students cleaning out the inside of a bell his wife made.	Here is Debs Eagle after we broke it out of the mold. The details turned out perfect.	Here is the wizard. She is rightfully very proud of these two pieces. This was her first pour, and they turned out great.
This is an elephant one of the guys made. the tail didn't come out, so he is pouring it separately and it will get tig welded on.	This is a little girl that stands about 3' tall. It weighs about 120 lbs. It's going to be placed on a granite base and placed on her lawn.	This is a sculpture of the surface of the ocean. In the center there will be a boat that he also poured tonight. I think he will put a bluish patina on the water.

The links below are to the movies I shot. My camera will only take 15 seconds at a time, but I think I was able to catch the bulk of it. If you watch them in order it will really show you what we do in class with a 200lb bronze pour. Be patient. The files take a while to download and start playing. Enjoy.

1: Opening the burnout oven after an hour and a half at about 1800 degrees.

2: Removing the pieces. They are laid up on the side of the sand pit and blown out with a long air nozzle.

3: Loading the sand pit. After clean out they are placed in the sand pit and a piece of insulation with a piece of ceramic brick is placed on top as a cap to ensure no sand can get into the moulds.

4: Adding Flux. They pour some borax into the top of the crucible as flux and also another powder I'm not sure of. I'll find out an update this.

5: Preparing to lift. They hook up the crane to the lifting tongs to get the crucible out of the melting furnace. It weighs a couple hundred pounds.

6: Lifting the crucible. Here they lift the crucible and then set it down to switch to the pouring tongs.

7: Pouring the sand casting. The first pouring is always the sand castings if there are any. They need to pour them when the bronze is still at its hottest and most liquid state.

8: Pouring first wax mould. They quickly move onto the wax casting moulds and pour the ones with the most detail first.

9: More wax castings. They continue the pour moving from cup to cup. Mathew is very good at hitting the cups first time every time.

10: Starting to pour the bell. One of the students made a 12" tall bell about 8" diameter at the base.

11: Finishing bell. This was the largest piece poured today. Everything else was pretty small actually.

12: Topping off. After the last mould is poured they go back and top off the cups.

13: Pouring ingots. Nothing is wasted. If there is left over metal in the crucible it is poured into ingot moulds made of angle iron. They will be melted next week.

14: More ingots. We had a lot of ingots tonight because most of our pieces were pretty small.

15: Moving to clean out. Once the crucible is empty they move back to the starting point and scrape out the bottom of the crucible.

16: Cleaning out. The tool they are using is very specialized. It's a piece of rebar with a bent hook on the end.

17: Setting it down. Once cleaned it is set back into the melting furnace. Before putting it down though they put a newspaper that's been soaking in water down in the bottom so the crucible won't stick.

18: What we poured. Here is a shot of what we poured tonight. We had enough material that we could have poured several more pieces. The item I am trying to point out at the end is the bell in the center.

19: Tossing Ingots. They don't wait very long at all before they start pulling things from the sand. The ingot moulds go first, then the castings.

20: Pulling castings. This is our stuff coming out of the sand. The bell was left in, and actually buried tightly so that it would cool slowly and get hard.

Sunday, May 15th, 2005

Here's how they turned out. We're both still working on them, but we are both very happy with how the pour went. We didn't get any voids or bad spots. Now it's just a matter of cleaning things up and getting the final piece the way we want it.

Here are the numbers laid out on a rusty piece of sheet metal. I will end up brazing them onto a plate that will be part of a forged mailbox stand I am planning to do. The unevenness in the surface was a look I was going for. I didn't want them perfectly smooth. I can buy flat numbers at Home Depot.	Here is the wizard and the eagle. Deb still wants to do a lot of detail clean up on them, but our dremel tool is about to give up the ghost on her. SHe has to stop and let it cool down every so often or it kicks off.

Thursday, June 2nd, 2005

First let me apologize to any classmates who came here recently looking for pictures of their work. I took a lot longer than I planned to get them up. I hadn't realized how many pictures I took until I started processing them all.

The final exam for the bronze casting class is a pot luck dinner at the teacher, Max DeMoss' studio. All I can say is wow! I was completely blown away with his studio, his art, and the whole layout. It was a true pleasure to be there. I was also very impressed with the quality of the art created by my fellow students. We have some very talented folks in class.

I didn't think to get people's names. (Doh) So, if any of you students would like your name put up with your piece please email me and I will be sure to add it.

Here is the finished boat that I showed up above.	This is Golgatha done by Jeff Melgard	Here is some sculpture and a bell in the background.
Here is that same head from the side.	This is a beautiful sculpture. The artist said he planned to redo the patina on it though.	The one to the side was also done by the same gentleman. His work was outstanding.
This was done by a first time student. The face didn't come out on the Laura Croft figure, but it still looks cool. He also did the dragon candle holder.	Here is the finished little girl that I showed up above as well. It turned out beautiful.	This is a saber tooth tiger skull. It really looked cool.
A sax player and a couple of skulls.	Here is a close up of the sax man. It really had great detail.	This piece was very cool. He cast the body in bronze. The head is carved wood, and the silver & brass areas are screws screwed into the wood. I had never seen anything like it.
This skull hadn't been cut off the sprew and cleaned up yet, but it looks like it will be pretty nice when finished.	Here is the table where we had all our stuff laid out.	The table again
And again	and again	This is a map of southern california from point conception down to the Mexican boarder.
The two ladies are still in their wax form. It was amazing watching the lady who sculpted them work first in clay, then after making a mold work in the wax. They truly look beautiful, and I can't wait to see how they turn out next semester after being poured.		You can really see how big it is in this pic with the person in it.
A beautiful wax sculpture of a cat	A couple of great waxy sculptures.	Here is the stuff Deb and I did.

The pictures below are all of Max's work. My camera & photography skills don't do it justice, but you can get an idea of how good he is from them. I also recommend that you check out his web page where all the pictures are done by professionals. It's at, http://maxdemoss.com/

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