Casting Bronze
We did it! We cast bronze. Even though we had previously smelted bronze and melted brass , we were full of doubts with this attempt to finally cast bronze. Would the furnace get hot enough to get the bronze fully molten? Would the molds withstand the heat? Would the bronze cool too quickly while pouring? etc. It was such a thrill to crack open the molds and see that it worked! This was the first time we made plaster molds for such high temperatures. We mixed the plaster 1:2 with sand. And then mixed this into the water, and poured the liquid plaster into our boxes. Following a tip from our sculptor friend and neighbour Alex , we set some of the figures on an angle, to allow the hot gases to better escape during the casting. ( This was the angle inside. ) And then of course the wax burnout in the toaster oven, to melt out most of the wax, and then much hotter in the raku kiln to burn off the last remnants. And then on casting day, we wheeled our Mighty Clay Furnace out to the pa