I've been busy chasing wax. First it was the new wax for "Waiting on the #9" that needed to go to the foundry and next it was the new wax for the Least Bittern sculpt "Two Possible Outcomes". The sculpture is cut into pieces during the mold-making procedure and the wax is poured and ready for chasing.
The process from clay to bronze is long and arduous. You can see that the wax pour has seam lines where the mold comes together. Sometimes they are small and easily removed but sometimes they are large and require hours of work to fix.
Bubbles are a common problem. I had the foundry pour 3 frogs and each one had this bubble. I did a test pour at home that I took extra time to brush the hot wax into the mold before pouring and it yielded better results with no bubble so I will probably pour the waxes for this frog...the extra time for me to brush and pour the hot wax was considerably less than the time it took for me to correct, fill and fix these imperfections.
All in all, the wax chasing took quite a bit of time to complete and return to the foundry - now the next step for them is to start making the slurry shell. The estimated time for the this to be in bronze is 7/24/15...and it was turned into the foundry on 5/27/15 - as I said - a long process to get to metal and then even more time to apply the patina and mount the base.
