Bronze casting

Mantrid - Sunday, March 14, 2010 - 6:29pm

Hello I'm new to the site. I have been sculpting and casting bronze for just over a year and am enjoying it considerably. I have put together a website in the hope of selling some of my work. I have joined this site to share my experiences and learn from others with more experience. I am UK based and am finding it very difficult to get supplies of silicon bronze. If anyone can recommend suppliers of this alloy in the UK I would be most grateful.

Here is my current work in progress

The inspiration

Oil based Clay

mould making

Sprued and ready for ceramic shell

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Welcome to ArtMetal,

Rich Waugh - Sunday, March 14, 2010 - 9:20pm

Welcome to ArtMetal, Mantrid!

Nice work and great photos. I look forward to seeing the finished piece. That's really excellent work for someone who has only been doing this for a year. You have obviously learned a lot in the past year and I can imagine that the next twelve months will bring even more impressive growth. It will be interesting to see and I hope you share your progress with us.

Rich Waugh
ArtMetal moderator

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Thanks Rich. My next step is

visitor - Monday, March 15, 2010 - 2:30am

Thanks Rich. My next step is to try bigger sculptures but my backyard foundry is a limiting factor there.

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Thank you Rich

Mantrid - Monday, March 15, 2010 - 4:37am

Thank you Rich

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Hi Mantrid, welcome to the

visitor - Monday, March 15, 2010 - 6:21am

Hi Mantrid, welcome to the site. I was impressed with the neatness of your mould making and spruing up. Where did you learn the process? I always use scrap bronze (silicon or phosphor)easily available from non ferrous scrapyards. Sue.

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Hi Sue I may give scrap

Mantrid - Monday, March 15, 2010 - 8:07am

Hi Sue
I may give scrap yards a try. I have avoided them to now because of the variable nature of the scrap, but the only UK supplier I can find has just hiked up the cost of their bronze.

I learned mould making and everything else from a book 'From Bronze to Clay' by Tuck Langland. Then just lots of practice.

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The last silicon bronze I

Rich Waugh - Monday, March 15, 2010 - 5:56pm

The last silicon bronze I bought was some bar stock and it was around $15.00 per pound. (ouch!) Casting ingot was somewhat cheaper but I needed bar stock for forging. I'm sure it is difficult to find silicon bronze in the scrap yards, but since I have no scrap yards at all here, it's a moot point.

Rich

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Just got a bit of silicon

Mantrid - Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 1:46pm

Just got a bit of silicon bronze from my usual supplier, they only had 11kg left and the price had gone up from £5.10 to £6.20 before VAT, double ouch!!
Mind you I think that is cheaper than what you paid if my conversion is right.