One of the processes involved with making castings, if you want to
make more than one, is making molds. I use a liquid room temperature
Vulcanizing urethane or silicone. I use a semi clear formula that allows
me to see the part as I cut it out of the mold. Otherwise I'm cutting
blindly into block of rubber.
The
first step is making the mold frame here I'm cutting a strip of
aluminum and bending it into this U shape. I'll make a box out of this
with two pieces of plexiglass, put my wax or metal model inside, fixed to
the bottom and then pour the rubber around it.
In
the picture above, from left to right, you see the box sealed up and
ready to pour next is one that is already been poured, in the middle is
another one that is ready to pour, second from the right is a cured mold
with the box removed and on the end, on the right, is one that's been
poured and ready to de-mold
above is a stack of molds ready to start cutting.
Here
the molds have been cut open along the sides of the models to make a 2
part mold. The top of the pictures shows the original bronze casting
that I used to make the mold, the mold after cutting with the original
removed, and the wax that was shot into the mold to make the
reproduction. As you can see from the waxes, there is still a lot of
work to be done before the casting process can begin. The next step is
to in case these waxes in a cylinder filled with a special high
temperature plaster then the plaster is placed in the oven and heated to
1600 Degrees to burn out the wax. Then the molten metal
is forced into that cavity by centrifugal force of the casting machine.