How to Cast Cemetery Monuments
- 1). Create an original artwork that you want to cast in bronze with your clay and sculpture tools. When it is complete, allow the work to dry until bone hard.
- 2). Make a mold of your artwork. Find a box large enough for the work to rest in, and make a notch in the side of the box that the bottom of your work will be pointed at. Fill the box halfway with plaster. Slather your work in petroleum jelly and rest it face down so that it is halfway submerged. Place the drinking straw at the bottom of your work so that one end of it touches your work and the other sticks out of the notch you made in the box. This will later serve as your key.
- 3). When the plaster has set, remove your artwork and let the bottom half of the mold dry. Slather your mold and your artwork in petroleum jelly, and put the work and the straw back into the mold. Cover the remainder of the work with wet plaster and allow that to set. When it is set, gently remove the top half of your mold from the bottom and allow both sides to dry completely for 48 hours.
- 4). Place the top half of the mold on the bottom half, using the key you made with the straw to help you match up the two. Tape the mold shut with the duct tape. Pour melted wax through the key into the mold and swish it around until you get a layer of wax build-up on the inside of your mold that is at least 1/4-inch thick. This may take several tries to get a good, consistent coating. Allow the wax to harden, and remove the mold. You should now have a wax version of your artwork. If you wanted, you could make several of these and see which one comes out looking best.
- 5). Chase the wax copy. This means filing away the seams at the sides that show where the mold pieces met. You may have lost some of the detail of your original in your wax copy, so you can also make small repairs and adjustments to the wax with your sculpture tools.
- 6). Place your hollow wax copy onto a spru structure once you have it looking the way you want. A spru consists of a wax cup with feeder tubes of solid wax attached at the bottom which connect the cup to the copy and vent tubes that attach to the uppermost part of the sculpture. You can buy one in an art supply store.
- 7). Dip your sprued wax copy into the ceramic slurry and then into the powdered clay and sand while the slurry is still wet. Allow the figure to dry completely and repeat this process until the figure is completely coated, save the inside of the spru cup, to 1/2-inch or more thickness. Stand the figure upon the flat top of the cup and allow it to dry completely.
- 8). Fire the figure in a kiln, cup side down. This is the point in the process where the wax is lost and you are left with nothing but a ceramic shell with negative space in the shape of your artwork. The feeder and vent tubes will also be hollow. Reclaim the wax to use again, if you want to.
- 9). Allow the shell to cool completely. When it is completely cool, pour water through it to test whether the feeder and vent tubes are clear of debris. If not, clean them out.
- 10
Bring your shell to a foundry and have it cast in bronze. This process is extremely dangerous and must be completed at a foundry by professionals. You cannot do this step at home. - 11
Pick up your figure from the foundry, and clean off the remainder of the shell if there is any left. The founders will have cut our your cup and spru system. Your figure is now a bronze statue and can be installed at your loved one's grave.
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