A Champion in the Making

Life-size Phoenix Bronze
Photo by Mike Davis ©

The Creation of the Phoenix Bronze

Part II

Once the wax is cooled and has hardened the plaster mother mold is unclamped and the rubber mold is opened and in this instance the back portion of the torso is revealed in perfectly formed wax. (plaster head in background). In this way each plaster horse section is translated into a wax horse section. Each wax section requires hours of hand labor to "correct" all blemishes and seam lines left by the molding process. (The rubber mold is saved for future use.)

When all wax sections are perfect, a third and final mold is made -- the "investment". Each wax is coated layer upon layer by what will become a concrete hard investment material capable of withstanding great heat. A system of "gates" or air vents and channels are engineered into this mold so no air bubbles will destroy the bronze casting.

The investment has hardened and is complete, so the wax horse section inside , which took so many hours to correct is "burned out". The wax is destroyed by heat; and the empty mold remains. This is the time-honored, centuries old "Lost Wax" method of bronze casting.

Each mold is placed in a sand pit (for heat dispersal). Liquid bronze at 2200° F and resembling liquid fire, is poured from a furnace into a special , portable container called the "crucible". From the crucible the liquid bronze is carried to the sand pit and each mold is filled. Once cooled, the solid bronze must be freed from this final mold. To do this the investment material must be carefully broken away. First power tools then hand tools are used, so as not to mar the bronze inside.

After each section of the horse, now in bronze, is removed from the molds each piece must be "chased" or corrected by filing and sanding the metal into flawless condition. The separate horse sections are then "spot welded" together. "Arc Welding" is used over the spot welding to completely join and bond all the horse sections and The Phoenix rises!

The standing bronze must be again "chased" painstakingly by hand until all evidence of weld marks is gone and all surface blemishes are corrected. The bronze horse weighs about 1700 pounds.

Bronze does not rust, but the elements in mother nature form a "patina", or coating, the color of green on the surface of the raw, yellow bronze. An enduring man made patina can be achieved by using an acetylene torch to etch chemicals into the surface of the raw bronze, to create a more pleasing color and to help protect the bronze from wear. The true and enduring patination process must be achieved by heat and many, many hours of applying thin layers of chemical over and over, to every square inch of the total surface of the sculpture.

When an artist casts a bronze edition, each casting in that edition must begin with pouring wax into the rubber mold. The mold is always kept until it loses its accurate shape. Each wax must then proceed through all of the other stages previously described.

Continue to A Champion in the Making: Part III


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* Photos are by CRANE unless otherwise noted.
©All Photos and Sculpture Copyright 1996, Patricia Crane.

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© International Museum of the Horse, 1997