The cast bronze shells have to cool for a few hours (which felt like an eternity to me as I paced about chain smoking) until they can be "knocked-off". A sledge hammer and air ratchet are carefully used on the sprue bars until the shell begins to crack and fall away revealing the rough bronze casting inside.
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| The rough casting revealed. So far, so good. Note the pile of broken shell in which she rests. |
Once the shell is busted away the castings have their sprue bars cut off with a plasma cutter. Once this is done they are placed in the sand blaster and the remaining shell is blasted off.
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| The remaining shell is blasted away to reveal the casting. |
When the pieces were finally brought out for my inspection I must admit that I got a bit weepy. So much work, so many countless hours, so many things could go wrong... But they didn't! The castings were absolutely beautiful.
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| If I had had a box of cigars I would have been handing them out at this point. |
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| The insane amount of hours it took to rebuild this in wax finally paid off. |
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| Wow. Nearly defect free. I was wiping tears of joy from my eyes. |
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| Incredible. Hugs all around. |
I'd like to thank the entire crew at Madd Castings for an absolutely amazing job all around: Moose, Chris, Kim, Bonnie, Brad, Tiffany, Gayle, Jason, Peter, Derrick and all the names that I'm forgetting: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!! I was told when I started this project that it would be "impossible" and a foolish waste of my time. I never stopped believing and neither did you guys. Thanks for making the impossible so very possible. I couldn't have done it without you all.
Next up: welding and the long drive home. Stay tuned!
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