Shortly after visiting the museum in Tanjore (Thanjavur), where we saw many magnificent bronze sculptures, we visited a specialist bronze sculpture shop. I'll check with Dad for the name. The shop is run by a family of artisans, who have been doing this for generations.
Here we saw the lost wax process in action.
The maquette is made from a mixture of candle wax, beeswax and rubber wax. The melted wax (possibly with some recovered wax) is black and malleable. Our guide made a small cobra to demonstrate.
The maquettes are then put in water to set (samples are lying on the board in the picture below). Then, in two stages they are then encased in the local clay (ideal because it neither expands, nor shrinks, nor cracks when heated), and dried in the sun. The two parts are bound together with wire. Two holes are left, one for the liquid bronze to be poured into, one for the air to escape out of. (You can see one in the top left corner of the picture below).
The bronze is made up of five elements (five being a significant number) - copper and tin are the main ingredients, but small amounts of gold, silver, and one other I can't remember are also added. Different colours and finishes can be obtained by different mixtures of the metals. The melting point is around 900C, and the fire is fanned by a hand-turned bellows. The OH&S issues are, well, numerous.
Once to clay cast is set, it is buried in dirt to keep it on its head, so the molten metal can be poured in.
Once the cast has cooled somewhat (a day or two), the clay mould is smashed open.
The statue is still incredibly hot. (In this pic, the master craftsman, the septuagenarian uncle of the English-speaking salesman, has not yet disentangled the statue from the wire used to hold the mould together.
The next stage is equally important - it is the filing and the polishing. The quality of the workmanship is made or broken here.
This particular family claims to be the only one who can make a bi-metallic casting of Shiva and Parvarthi. We didn't find out how they did this but propose different densities, and dual pourings, or something.
Here we saw the lost wax process in action.
The maquette is made from a mixture of candle wax, beeswax and rubber wax. The melted wax (possibly with some recovered wax) is black and malleable. Our guide made a small cobra to demonstrate.
The maquettes are then put in water to set (samples are lying on the board in the picture below). Then, in two stages they are then encased in the local clay (ideal because it neither expands, nor shrinks, nor cracks when heated), and dried in the sun. The two parts are bound together with wire. Two holes are left, one for the liquid bronze to be poured into, one for the air to escape out of. (You can see one in the top left corner of the picture below).
The bronze is made up of five elements (five being a significant number) - copper and tin are the main ingredients, but small amounts of gold, silver, and one other I can't remember are also added. Different colours and finishes can be obtained by different mixtures of the metals. The melting point is around 900C, and the fire is fanned by a hand-turned bellows. The OH&S issues are, well, numerous.
Once to clay cast is set, it is buried in dirt to keep it on its head, so the molten metal can be poured in.
Once the cast has cooled somewhat (a day or two), the clay mould is smashed open.
The statue is still incredibly hot. (In this pic, the master craftsman, the septuagenarian uncle of the English-speaking salesman, has not yet disentangled the statue from the wire used to hold the mould together.
The next stage is equally important - it is the filing and the polishing. The quality of the workmanship is made or broken here.
This particular family claims to be the only one who can make a bi-metallic casting of Shiva and Parvarthi. We didn't find out how they did this but propose different densities, and dual pourings, or something.
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