Monday, April 30, 2012

Metal Fabrication project




Metal Fabrication project: 
I stared this project from a pen drawing I had done 

The plan was a 3'x6' final piece, using 1/4'' steel rods

I cut and bent the steel utilizing clamps to create half circles and circles in order to begin creating the skeleton structure




The process was very tedious, cutting bending, using props to balance each piece into place so that I could weld it onto the structure
After all the pieces were welded on the structure, I used the grinder to smooth out all the welding seams

The last step was color application, spray paint and acrylic





I greatly enjoyed making my creature come to life. The process is not over this summer I plan to cover the structure with plaster strips giving him body and them painting the creature to look more like my drawing.




Monday, April 16, 2012

Buddha!

Step 1: Sculpt Buddha from clay 

 
: Create a blanket mold- I achieved this by tightly wrapping my clay sculpted Buddha in saran wrap. Then rolling out  1/4'' clay wall to build around contouring the saran wrapped Buddha. Next, splitting the Buddha into four sections by another 1/4'' clay wall (which is what you can see dividing the plaster mold below).  I then plastered each section taking out the second clay walls as the plaster dried. After the plater mold was completed, I took the mold apart, removed the saran wrap and the rest of the clay walls  from the original sculpted Buddha. Placed only the plaster mold back together over the original clay Buddha and tightened it with rubber ties. I filled in the cracks with clay to seal it from the next step of pouring liquid silicon. Drilled a hole about an inch and half through the top of the mold to pour the silicone. Let dry over night. The next day took the mold apart, carved out the clay, put the mold back together with only the silicone and plaster parts. Tied with rubber ties, the placed upside down in a bucket. Melted the brown wax, and poured the wax in the silicone mold for fifteen minutes, then poured it back out letting a thin wax wall left inside the mold. After cooling I patched up and holes in the wax and took it carefully out of the plaster/silicone mold. 










The Next process is to sprue up the two halves of wax that I cut.
After the two halves are sprued up, the next step is to dip them into the ceramic mixer to make a ceramic shell. This is done many times, some with fine and corse sands to build up the shell.



After hardening the shell, the end of the shell must be cut off with a chop saw, then burn out the paper cup to expose the wax sprue, which is then put into a kiln to melt the wax out of the ceramic shell. 
All the while the bronze is in it's own kiln heating up to molten degrease 

The sand pits are prepared with the ceramic shells (after the wax has been emptied) 
Then we suite up in loge sleeved clothing, hard leather boots, leather aprons, leather jackets, fire proof shin guards, and foot coverings, bandanna gloves, and face shield.

After the pour the shell is filled with bronze and taken out of the sand pits to cool

Busted away the ceramic shell
Next step is to cut off the sprue and clean up the bronze and piece the Buddha back together again!

 Then buff the uneven milky surface of the bronze off and file down the seam






last step is to wax seal the bronze