Bronze Casting Process
Art Bronze Inc, Foundry Tour
MODERNARTS - Bronze Sculpture: The Art of Lost Wax
In the third millennium B.C., somewhere between the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf, an artist crafted a vision in beeswax, covered it in liquid clay and cooked it in a fire. In the flames the wax was lost, replaced by empty space. Tin and copper - alloys of bronze – were gathered and heated. Once melted, the metal was poured into the cavity of the fire-hardened clay. The metal cooled and the sculptor knocked the clay from the metal. The first bronze was cast.
Lost Wax Process
The following video created by the National Sculpture Society
illustrates the process in detail.
The “Lost Wax” is the process by which a metal sculpture is cast from an artist’s original sculpture. This ancient method has being used since the third millenium B.C. and has withstood the centuries, visually telling the tale of past cultures, their religion and their social structures. The “Lost Wax” term derives from the wax replica that is melted out of the investment created, thus it is “lost” to receive the bronze.