'imitation broze?'

[adele]

Hi!!
I am searching for a product that combines a bronze coat backed up with a kind of plaster. It can be poured into molds in a could state!! And can be finished like 'real' bronze.
I live in Germany now and couldn't find such a product anywhere on the internet here. HOWEVER when I lived in the States I once ran across this material.
Any leads?

[RuBert]

I have heard of a method of making Cold Bronze, but it is a little different:

In this, bronze particles are suspended in a resin matrix and sprayed 1/16 of an inch thick onto the surface of a fiberglass mold, created from a rubber mold taken from the original clay sculpture. Because the resin rises to the surface as the bronze particles "dry" during the spraying, the resin acts as a protector.

Using cold-bronze instead of cast bronze also keeps production costs down, but there are trade-offs for the savings. The cold-bronze work won't last for the several thousand years expected of solid bronze. But it ought to hold up for close to 100 years.

Does anyone else have any experience?

[adele]

Thank you for your comment! Do you have any personal experience with this process? I've run across companies on the internet that offer a 'bronze spraying service'. That make it seem difficult to successfully use this product oneself !?

Adele

[JHoughton]

Last year I was looking for a way to coldcast bronze in my studio because of problems in my local foundry. Basically I wanted to be more efficient in most regards. I had used Smooth-on resins before with a color additive to make parts for my work. They sell an additive that you place in the casting resin that is supposed to look like bronze. I tried it with some molds I had lying around and basically it worked but unfortunately after 6 tries it never took on a suitable bronze appearance. It seemed to look like a semi metallic brown plastic no matter what amounts I tried to add to the mix. I soon ran out of resin to practice with and havn't played with it since (not that I won't). I saw some resin cast bronze work in a gallery last year that looked very good (very typical uninteresting figurative works, but the resin looked nice), so it is more than likely my casts were done wrong or not quite correctly. Anyhoo, smooth-on sells resin and powder kits and I'm sure many of the other resin companies do too.

[adele]

Thank you for the lead and shared experience, Mr. Houghton!
The sculptures that you saw exhibited - did they have any type of patina on them??? The material I am looking for can be treaded with patina. When tapping on the matured 'bronze' does it sound like metal or like plastic?

Sincerely,
Adele Elliott

[JHoughton]

Yes adele, they all were presented with various levels of patination. Most seemed to be different shades of green. When I thumped them with my finger I seem to recall a dull thud.

[fritchie]

Adele and Jarrod - I have done figurative work since about 1988, and have worked in both true bronze and in a couple of types of resin. Most "cold cast" bronzework seems to be figurative, because it’s a much cheaper process and gives some access to the large figurative market.

I have watched advertisements for this material all along, and have seen some in galleries, principally during a visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico, about 6 - 7 years ago. Any careful observer will immediately distinguish between true bronze and resin with included bronze powder. All that I have seen is the regular brownish color of fresh bronze, but I have read in many places that it can be patinaed with regular patina mixtures - liver of sulfur, copper nitrate, ferric nitrate, and so on - to give green, blue, or various brown shades. Jarrod has described the usual procedure, as I have seen it published - a thin coat of the mix on the inner surface of the mold, followed with a thicker coat of resin to build up to the desired full thickness for strength.

An advantage of resins is that they can take many additives. I generally used finely chopped glass fiber, for both strength and a nice, pale green color. I no longer use resins because of either allergic reactions or toxic fumes. Some local sculptors add dry, powdered clay to the resin. That gives a sort of ceramic look.