Duluth Public Art Project, Installed

Yesterday we installed the two figures at the Public Safety Building in Duluth. One more trip is required to finish, we didn't bring the plaque along to install that too.

Duluth Public Art Welding Done!

I want to invite you all to the studio, Last Chance Fabricating, 17 Railroad Drive, Lutsen, MN this Saturday June 23 from 10 till noon. We are going to have a send off party for the big sculptures. We will be serving doughnuts (Worlds Best) and coffee.
The welding is finished. Now just a little more grinding and then sand blasting and patina.

Finishing Up

welding the man's chest together

note the threaded rod and clamp, in casting pieces some warping occurs so we need to squeeze the pieces together to get a good fit

here we are, side by side, the arms are next, then the badges and equipment on the belts

Assembling cast pieces

Summer intern Graham Johnson with the female Deputy 

The casting is all but finished (one more mold to pour). Welding the cast pieces together. So far everything is fitting well with a little persuasion. The wax pieces can warp a bit so after casting we sometimes need to squeeze parts together or apply a hammer blow or two to close the gap.

Video about the Duluth Public Art project

Karen Sunderman and Steve Ash created this video for The Playlist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg0M5v550Yw&feature=share

Visit from The Playlist

Steve Ash and Karen Sunderman of WDSE/WRPT along with Lester Morrison of Last Chance

Yesterday (7 May) was busy and fun here at the studio. Karen Sunderman and Steve Ash of the program "The Playlist" PBS North paid us a visit. Karen and Steve shot video of our work on the Duluth Public Art Project. Lester was working on the last wax (a piece we miss-cast earlier), I was welding and both Lester and I did a pour. We were also vitrifying the final round of molds to be cast and Steve shot some footage of the molds in the kiln. Look for broadcast of this segment later in May. I'll post here when I know the date. You can keep more up to date with the Playlist schedule here.

A few years ago Karen and Steve came to the studio to do a piece on our work here. You can see a portion of that show by clicking here. This video also shows Wayne Potratz my friend and mentor. I want to thank Karen and Steve for the terrific work they do on behalf of the art community in the north land. Having the exposure they are able to give us broadens our audience and gives us a sense of accomplishment.

It has been several weeks since I last posted but we have been working very hard. We have nearly all the casting done with only one mold failure. Not a bad ratio for the number of molds we have cast.

Duluth Public Art Progress, 13 April

Making good progress on the project. We are being extra careful on the mold making and adding insurance in the form of sand molds over our ceramic shell. This adds perhaps another hour per mold but insures we don't have to start from scratch if a mold fails.

Final 3 sections of the legs, all the debris in the background is waste. But if one of our shell molds were to fail we would not only have 30 pounds of molten bronze on the floor we would have to start the wax process over. The sand mold is insurance to prevent this from happening.

Make shift blower. To dry the shell cores (inside the mold). I found a sleep apnea pressure device that blows a gentle 8 cfm, split the pipe and put ends into mold. Works great!

Arms right out of the molds

Body section, because these are so big we are coating one side at a time. To prevent the wax from spreading out from the weight of the mold material screws are set next to the wax, blocks are underneath.

We will be casting body sections early next week and assembling of the casting will start right after that. By next weekend I should have the female figure pieced together, can't wait!