Metal Art Casting and the Basics of Casting Metal Art:
Submitted by: Ivan Smith
Casting is
one of the earliest known forms of metal working. In its most basic form, it
involves heating metal until it is molten and then pouring it into a mold. As
the metal cools it takes the shape of the mold. Early castings were crude in
finish with a lot of surface anomalies that required a great deal of machine
work to get the desired quality of surface texture. Modern casting techniques
produce very fine tolerances and the casting requires little or no finishing
work.
The artist
who creates metal art castings needs to be both a foundry man and an artist.
Bronze is one of the earliest alloys known to man and is made up of tin and
copper. Being malleable, it becomes a liquid of low viscosity when melted and
thus has the ability to fill even small crevices in a mold, allowing for the
production of castings with fine detail. Although bronze castings are the most
common, nearly any metal can be cast. The artist needs to know what kind of
mold to use with what metal. And he needs to know how to melt metal.
The casting
process starts with the creation of the mold. The most common type is called
the Lost Wax Casting method. Being simple to create and with the ability to
create molds with fine detail, it is the artists’ favorite. First the artist
creates a wax sculpture. This sculpture is then used to create a mold. Molds
can be made from a variety of materials from sand to latex, depending on the
amount of detail required. Latex is used when extremely fine detailing is
involved since it forms a skin like coating on the sculpture and picks up even
the minutest detail. The sculpture is then removed from the mold.
Molten wax
is then poured in the mold until the required thickness is achieved and the wax
copy is then removed and any imperfections on the surface removed. A shell is
then built around the copy using a mixture of sand and liquid silica. The shell
is heated until the wax melts and runs out through a drain hole left in the
shell.
The final
mold is then ready and the molten metal is poured into it. After it has cooled
and taken the shape of the mold, the shell is removed and the finished casting
is available.
The artist
then removes and imperfections that may remain on the casting after which it is
either painted of coated to give it the desired finish.
Metal art
castings may be of any size, from the smallest piece of gold jewelry to a huge
cast statue to big to even fit indoors. The advantage of this type of metal art
is the fine detail that can be produced. Modern metal melting techniques ensure
that the molten metal that enters the mold is without imperfections and strong
enough to securely hold a diamond (in the case of jewelry) or withstand the
rigors of nature (in the case of garden sculptures).
Additionally,
once the mold is made, numerous copies of the art work may be produced.
About the Author
Go to FistFire to get your free ebook on
Metal Art at http://www.fistfire.com. FistFire also has
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Published At: www.Isnare.com
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