Ibrox Disaster Memorial , Sculpture by Andy Scott

A wax pattern

Investing the wax

Retrieving the bronze

Foundry Services

Lost Wax Bronze Casting

Lost Wax Bronze Castingis a truly ancient technology ,second only to flint knapping perhaps . In essence it has changed very little in the last few thousand years .

A pattern of the object required is made in wax which is then encased in a fireproof medium . This is fired in a kiln burning away the wax and leaving a mould with a void of the exact shape and character of the now lost wax .

Molten bronze is poured into the mould which is allowed to cool before being broken open to reveal the bronze casting .

In the modern version of this process an initial silicone rubber and fibreglass mould is created from the original artwork which is often modelled in clay . This mould is used to cast a hollow wax pattern of the artwork . If more than one bronze is required a number of wax patterns can be cast from this mould .

In the traditional plaster investment technique used by Beltane Studios a refractory material called ludo is bound with plaster and water to make the secondary fireproof mould . These moulds are carefully stacked inside a kiln and fired for three days at 600 degrees Celsius . After cooling the moulds are loaded into the casting pit and filled with molten bronze .

When the investment moulds are broken open to retrieve the bronze castings the material is kept , crushed and riddled and becomes the ludo to make the next generation of moulds making this method of investment much more environmentally friendly than the alternative ceramic shell technique .

Flexibility

Giant Fruit Sculptures by Andrew Mckeown

Lost wax casting of a client's artwork into bronze is the staple of any Fine Art foundry but it it doesn't have to be traditional .

These Giant Fruit sculptures were cast in Gunmetal bronze for artist Andy Mckeown . Andy made his own silicone rubber and fibreglass moulds of the smaller fruits at his own workshop . He didn't have room for modelling the big apple but was able to have the work carried out at the foundry under his supervision .

Andy sourced some very colourful patinating recipes from the United States . The results were quite extraordinary !

Beltane Studios have cast sculpture in aluminium , brass , lead and iron by lost wax and have a close working relationship with a local sandcasting foundry .

Maja enjoying a rest on her beautiful sculpture

Fabrication

"Fleeting" Sculpture by Maja Quille

Working with the artist , Maja Quille and her Structural Engineer, Beltane Studios were able to realise Maja's design for her wonderfully meditative sculptural seat formed from a spiralling flock of birds .

From Maya's original , three moulds were made and Maja and her friends had fun making all the wax patterns for the birds .

A structure was devised to meet the Engineer's requirements and was fabricated in stainless steel tubing .

The wax birds were manipulated to fit the structure then cast and welded to each other and , by discreet hand formed brackets , to the stainless steel form .

Non-metal Casting

"Viridor Tree" sculpture by Svetlana Kondakova

When Svetlana contacted the Maciver brothers to ask about having a concrete tree trunk cast in situ for her sculpture in Dunbar she was a little bit surprised when she was invited to "pick"her own tree from their Nephew's farm .

The tree trunk was cut to size then transported to the foundry where a large and heavily constructed two part mould was made .

On site the mould was fixed in place round the steel structure Svetlana had put in place and was filled with carefully vibrated fibre reinforced concrete . Minutes later the mould was removed to reveal the perfectly cast bark of the original Scots Pine complete with insect boreholes .

An unusual and highly successful use of casting technology combined with Svetlana's iridescent glass mosaic to create this wonderful tree .

Small Scale and Intricate

Silver plated basket hilt for Paul Macdonald

Master Armourer Paul Macdonald posed a real technical chalenge to the foundry when he asked if they could cast this intricate basket hilt for a replica Jacobite sword he was making .

The solution was to make a mould for a core that would sit inside an outer mould with space between the two to run the delicate wax pattern.

The theory was sound but it took a fair amount of tweaking to get it right !

An enjoyable challenge for the foundry and the result when polished , silver plated and added to the rest of Paul's fantastic work is quite breath taking .

Paul has plans to cast another in solid silver using the same method .

Bronze plaque with blue Enamel

A snap sent from the White House

A finishing of microcrystalline wax

Plaques from CNC Milled Wax

In Association with Relicarte Ltd.

Aegir Maciver from Relicarte Ltd. makes these beautifuly crisp wax patterns for his brothers to cast at Beltane Studios .

The foundry sends their 2D artwork to Relicarte who transforms it to mill these 3D wax patterns from a blank wax billet.

Matchiing the software , cutting head and the correct grade of wax all took time but the result is that the waxes can be invested directly without the need to make a hard pattern and a mould .

The result is a reduced lead time and no loss in sharpness from the original artwork . The client can also see a 3D rendering of how the plaque will look before the pattern is cut .

Plaques made like this adorn many places of note around the Country. There is even one on the wall of the White House in America commemorating the Scots masons who built it.