Pouring the bench

This is the mold for the newspaper one figure will hold. If you look carefully there is an imprint of the New York Times headline. The other print is just color imprinted into the mold and won't show in the finished bronze.

In the foundry we bury the molds to make it safer to pour. The hole is 3.5 feet deep.

Ready to Pour.

Lifting out the crucible. 

Pouring the first mold.

Finished pouring, now to open the molds to see if it all worked as planned.

Molds ready to pour

Here is part of the largest mold for the bench. This shows the sprue method I use to introduce metal into the pattern.

These are the 3 big molds for this bench, the seat and the 2 back sections. 9 molds in all. We will be pouring these tomorrow.

Here is a mold opened up, it has two cardboard patters in it for legs for the bench. In the top right of the picture you can see molds that are ready to pour.

The patterns are removed and I have cut channels into the mold to allow the bronze to flow into the pattern and there are vents to allow the air to evacuate the mold quickly.

The mold is now glued and banded together. When hot metal is poured in there is a great deal of pressure trying to force the two halves of the mold apart. This bench will require 8 molds weighing about 1600 lbs.

Pattern

Here is the man half of the bench set up in the mold flask. My toes show in the right side of the frame to give an idea of scale. I used real buttons and a bow and string for the glasses in the pocket. It doesn't show well but this pattern is bent in the mold to round the back and the shoulder is bent back. A little more complicated than the regular flat molds. 150 lbs. of resin bonded sand covers this pattern now, the sand has to cure overnight.

Resin Bonded Sand Molds

1100 pounds of sand later, these molds are cured.

Patterns set up for sand molds

New Bench Project

Weezie Bradach called me a while back after seeing an article about my benches in Lake Superior Magazine.
She commissioned a bench for her parents to go to their family cabin in Michigan.