Pouring liquid bronze into the molds

It was an important day today for our lost wax casting class. Our beautiful sculptures were finally cast into bronze.

The bronze was melted in a furnace and the molds were filled with liquid bronze that was poured by hand while the mold was still very hot.

The flask was then allowed to cool and the investment mold was broken away revealing the metal sprue with all the sculptures attached to it. After having the sprue exposed it had to be washed to get rid of all the plaster and sand surrounding it.

This process faithfully reproduces every detail of the original wax as well as the gates and vents, which we had to cut off to get to finalise the sculptures.