need help

[shahid hussain]

hi all!
i am sculptor from Pakistan, wanted to cast some of my wok in bronze but facing some problems in it. there are no foundries for artists for lost wax casting. though the sand casting easily available here, but its not up to my requirements.
I have some know how of lost wax casting method .... not practically did yet............. the actual problem is that , that you put on layers of ceramic mould on wax piece, ...... so on what materiels or components that ceramic mould consist of ? and on what ratio they mixed togather?
i will be thankfull to you if you help me find out the solution of my problem.
thank you

shahid Hussain :)

[Kaffredrik]

Hello Shahid, nice to hear from Pakistan, I've been to Lahore, Multan and other cities, a special country you live in :) You live and work in Karachi (?), then it is probably not worth the trouble looking in India for a lost-wax-caster...

I have only assisted in bronze-casting so my advice is not good, but you seem to have gotten the basic right... there's a person here on sculpture.net that I know has cast a few bronzes: DanielUCM and if you send him a PM about this thread I am certain he will post something useful.

Oh, and please try to specify exactly what you need help with at the subject of your thread - although this is perhaps not necessary at this forum since the threads actually are within reasonable numbers ;)

[shahid hussain]

hi kaffredrik!
i am so glad to hear you know my country and cities. :)
sure you did'nt find it as people consider it now :eek: .you said me to visit india for lost wax process .......... so i think you forgot that still pakistan and india could 'nt established good relationship .and if i dont have any relative there so i must be spy for them :o . but hope for better near future whether i would be at that time or not :) . my english is not good but i hope you understand me. you told me the name of Daniel UCM ....please tell me how can i asked him for help? thanks so much for telling me mention the subject of specifically or else ''need help'' feels like a pakistani government thread inspite of an artist :D

[Kaffredrik]

Shahid, I have given a PM to DanielUCM, he will post something here tomorrow (it is late, late night here in Sweden, in fact, it is almost morning). If you would like to PM someone else you can just go to your "Private Messages" at the top of the page, where your name is. Then navigate to "Messages" and you should be allright. I have no trouble understanding your English, by the way, it is quite nice :)

The people of Pakistan is great! Friendly and hospitable and bear very little resemblence to the angry people you will see in the news - I stumbled into a huge moscue (spelling?) by mistake and were very welcomed, like everywhere. The people were also very open-minded and not prejudicial at all against India, USA etc, quite a relaxing country would it not be for the traffic :p

[shahid hussain]

hi Kaff! in fact now i've forgot about my problem....... now its more pleasure for me to talk a person who know my country :) .... tell me some details of how long have you visited here? there are more to explain which i am unable to do but i think you can understand ..... here i have an example to you of a movie ''Apoclypeto'' if you 've seen? its a wonderfull movie depicting morals and values of both well civilized and uncivilized society...............conditions have placed us in a chaos :confused: ................ ok we end it up here now :) .hope for the betters..... the world would'nt be just so called ''Global Village'' but would be ''global family'' where all can understand each other .
and thanx for PM to daniel for me :)
Best Wishes
Shahid

[DanielUCM]

Hi Shahid!

I will give you some very brief information here. I will begin by saying that you must either make your sculpture in wax directly or make a flexible mould so that you can cast it in wax. The reason is (as you might know) that when you have made the mould around the wax the wax must be burnt out.

There are two basic methods of the lost wax technique: 1. Ceramic shell, 2. Investment casting

1. Ceramic shell
When using this method you take your sculpture (which is made of wax)and dip it in a so called 'slurry' (a liquid consisting of hazardous powders and liquids which are mixed together). The dipped sculpture is then covered with a ceramic powder/granules. You do this several times to build thickness of the shell and add increasing size of ceramic powder/granules. This technique is mainly used by foundries since it is easy to use in large scale but very difficult to do your self. The main reason why it is difficult is that the slurry goes very stiff if you do not stirr it all the time. When you have not stirred for a while it is hard to make it a good mix again and takes a lot of strenght if done by hand.

2. Investment casting

With this method you basically suspend your wax in a container and pour a mix of plaster, water and sand (or some other substance which is heat resistant) and have it surround the wax and leave it in there until the material dries. Much easier to do yourself but burning out the wax takes longer time than using ceramic shell. You must have a kiln for burn-out.



I have only used the ceramic shell method myself and I learned using it from my father. Even though I have no experience in doing investment casting I would recommend it to you because I know that ceramic shell is so much hard work. The material is also less expensive for investment casting. I would probably not have been able to learn how to do ceramic shell castings based on instructions from the internet so I recommend that you buy a book on investment casting. The best thing is that you find a foundry or a school in Pakistan that do investment casting and have them show you how to do.

A book which shows you the entire process from clay original to mould and from mould to wax and from wax to investment casting and bronze is: "From Bronze to Clay: A Studio Guide to Figurative Sculpture", by Tuck Langland. I am sure that people at this community with experience in investment casting can give you some more literature ideas and perhaps some other information. You can also go to the top of the page and search for 'investment casting' because I am sure that there are other threads where the subject is discussed.

Hope this helps a little at least!
/Daniel S.

[shahid hussain]

hi daniel! first of all i really like to thanks you warmly for giving me time
and providing me yours precious suggestions this help a lot to me :)
my friend i understand that due to the resources ceramic shell need this process is impossible for me.as you might know we have very small opportunities over here...... yes i feel some easy about investment casting,so can you give me some more details specifically of ''investment casting'' ? i have some confusions here :confused: as i know plaster would'nt be able to bear the heat of melted bronze.... it would be certainly blast ..... and even its so hard for me to agree any metal caster ... coz workers here not even wear safety glasses yet :D ....... ya but wear fasion glasses :cool:
so please tell me what are heat resistent binder and what ratio they mixed togather?
the book you mentioned i 'll try to find it . i am so glad to know that you learned from your father same as me .... do you have any web where i can see your work?
i thank you again and again for giving time and suggestions . you are really so kind :) . i am thankfull to kaffredrik too for asking you for me .
regards
Shahid :)

[Kaffredrik]

Hello Shahid. I've been away to the countryside, hence my late reply. When I visited your country in late 2002 we got only a transit visa and were recommended by our own embassy to take the southern roads, passing by Karachi, to India (which was a REALLY bad advice which we didn't follow). We took the middle road which was a nice way. We thought that Pakistan was an arid and dry little, muslim country with around 10-20 million, angry people but after we had travelled the first lenght through the western deserts we stumbled upon vast city after vast city... so big... we were stunned since we had slept during the geography lessons in school. The biggest surprise were of course the people of all those cities Quetta, Loralai, Multan and Lahore... I really miss some of the people we got to know in those few days and my friend went back half a year later in spring 2003 to visit one of them... I didn't since I ran out of money :/ maybe I will see Pakistan again, would be nice.

How will you do with your bronze casting? Do you have everything you need (wax, slurry-powder and something to heat the bronze in)?

[shahid hussain]

hi keffredrick welcome home ,i wish we've talked before so you would be my guest when you came to pakistan . i think you hav'nt been to karachi,its the biggest city with the 15 (million) population :eek: .if you'll come i'll show you only the best places :) but these dayz even the best places are drown due to heavy rain :o .

i use wax but the slurry powder :confused: i don't know based on which components ? or for melting metal here are small factories doing sand casting could done so if i'll make my own mould ,and they'll pour the melted metal in ,but it has to be certainly secure otherwise they don't go for any option other than sand casting ,i more thing to ask you......what is chrystobolite? do you know about? i saw on jeweler site, i've mail the company but they did'nt reply so i could't know, maybe its harmful and used to make bombs :D so you get the info wether its easy to use you and not much expensive.
regards
shahid:)

[Landseer]

as i know plaster would'nt be able to bear the heat of melted bronze....Oh? that's news to me, sculptors in the 19th century like Barye and Mene cast their own bronzes in their studios using PLASTER/sand molds and were highly successful at it, their casts are in museums and those that are not command huge prices as valuable collectable antiques.