YEA! we have a pour on the Grambling tiger

It takes lots and lots of metal to make this huge tiger.
All of these bars will be melted down and become ...
The Grambling Mascot. 

If you have been following the foundry process up to now, you have learned about

* The mold making that we did in May,  June and July
* The waxes
* The gating up process and dip
* The burn out

and now we get to the exciting thing.... The pour.

Oh, that is hot!  It is kind of hypnotic,
the look of this molten bronze.  

When I dropped off the molds for the tiger at Shidoni in NM you may remember that I stayed at Bishops Lodge.  I heard people at Bishops Lodge talking about the pour at Shidoni. Apparently Shidoni make this a regular Saturday event and people can come from the local hotels and watch.

A few weeks ago, I was on Facebook and heard that Susan Herndon was performing in the gardens at Shidoni.  Then I saw a photo on Facebook of an empty bench with guitar and amps near by.  I think the caption on the photo said, "stopping the music to see a pour."  I commented, and sure enough, it was our tiger.

The pour on the tiger will happen many times in the next few weeks. For every wax, that is gated up and burned out there will be a pour of the metal into those pieces.  So here are some recent pictures from Shidoni concerning the tiger. I have asked if they can video tape the head being poured. I can't wait to see that. So stay tuned.

You can see the shells in the pit. These shells have had the
wax burned out of them. Now that cavity where the wax
once was will now be filled with molten bronze.
The men wear protective clothing. 

It takes several people to pour the metal-safety in numbers!

How many more of these will be done?  I estimate 50 or so pieces
that have been or will be- made into wax from the molds, gated up,
burned out, and poured.  And we still have a few more steps after this. 

A burn out at the foundry

A large burn out oven is ready to receive the shells

A burn out is when they take the ceramic shell and then "burn out" the wax that is within the shell. That is why this process is often referred to as "the lost wax method of bronze casting." We will lose the wax in this part and it will be replaced by bronze in the next part.  These burn out ovens are some of the largest I have seen.

Heated up- the shell will bake and the wax will
melt, leaving room for the bronze. 

The wax covered in ceramic is ready for burn out. 

Getting to the tiger. YIPPEEE!

We labored so hard on these molds. 

Hey, I recognize these piece!  Here we have two legs/paws.  It is so exciting to see the foundry move from working on the rock to the tiger itself.  Wow!  They are moving along. I can't help but wonder if they will make homecoming. Still there are no promises.  They said it was a 20% chance, and even if they get finished, I need to go there approve the sculpture, and we need to ship it. So if we are praying for anything pray that "everything " goes smoothly, even down to the weather when the sculpture is supposed to be in transit.

More exciting pictures to come!

The wax

This is the front left leg and paw.  

Dipped and waiting for more coats. 

Moving along at Shidoni Art Foundry

Pieces of wax rock are pulled through Shidoni wax area

Here are some more pictures from Shidoni Art Foundry. If you remember, in a previous blog post the Foundry poured wax into all of the molds that we sent them.  There are many.  Once the waxes are poured they are gated up.  Each of the pieces needs a pour cup and sprues. The pour cup will be where metal is poured. The wax spures or gates are channels where the gases can escape.  Later the cups and spures will be cut away.  We saw this in the last post as well.   Now, all of these wax pieces need to be dipped in slurry mixture.

Each piece is on a pulley system, that is because they are so large.   Each is carried through the wax area on this system and then lowered into the dip. Then it is covered with a sand mixture to create a ceramic shell.  There are many coats of this mixture that must go on each wax piece and each piece must dry at a certain temperature.  If they don't create these shells correctly then when they try to pour the molten bronze in them later, they could break. These are all part of the rock that the Tiger climbs on.  They are pretty big.

Each piece must be dipped in the slurry mixture and then covered with a sand mixture to create a shell. 

Many layers of shell are needed. 

Apparently, they can flip the piece to dip the other side. This is so cool! 

Look what I found on the Grambling University website!

When I spoke to the University this week I was told that everyone wanted to know where to find the blog about the making of their tiger. I guess some still don't know that there is blog at http://www.gramblingtiger.blogspot.com that has been dedicated to just the making of the tiger. My university contact said they will try to put the link of the tiger project blog on the front page of the website. I went there today and didn't find that, but I did find a link to the "Campus Beautification Project." Further digging gave me a slide show of the dedication of the space for the tiger. Seems like there are others getting ready, other than us at Bridgette Mongeon Sculpture Design Studios in Houston, Texas and Shidoni Foundry in New Mexico.

The top right corner of the Grambling University website has a link to the beautification project and there the tiger waves a welcome. 

I suppose this was from the dedication. There is my presentation of the tiger . 

w

Will we see the tiger for homecoming?

This is a question that everyone is asking. I have just sent Shidoni Foundry an e mail and asked them the same question.  It means that they would need to finish the sculpture by the middle of October so that I can go to see the metal and approve the sculpture for patination, the coloring.

I have told Grambling, "Lets not sacrifice the art for the deadline, but we will do everything we can." If Shidoni can make this deadline I will say it is a miracle, but they have a lot of people and are making headway, so stay tuned!

Update from the foundry- Waxes

Wax pieces of rock rest in their rubber/fiberglass molds 

If you have been following along with the sculpting process of the Grambling State University Tiger then you know that the molds have been taken to Shidoni Foundry in New Mexico at the end of  July and they are now being worked on there.

The first step to the mold making process is the wax.  If you refer back to the mold making process you will find that there were rubber molds made of every piece of the sculpture.  These rubber pieces were covered in a fiberglass mother mold.  Now, the inside of each of these molds must be painted with wax.

I figured the foundry would start with the massive rocks, and I was right.  The wax is painted into the mold and then each mold section must be gated up.  Gates and pour cups give the metal a channel to flow through and allow the gasses to escape to give a clean pour.

The molds are ready for

Shidoni is known for their monumental sculptures and creates larger bronze pieces.  I was curious about the metal bars on the waxes. In my 30 years of working in bronze I have never seen that. I contacted the manager to ask him to define the process.

"Those help support the shape of the panels as we coat the wax with ceramic shell. If we don’t add some structure the wax may move while dipping, and this can crack the first layers of shell. The problems escalate from there. Those bars will be cut off once the shell is on. Then the wax is burned out and the holes are patched so the bronze can be poured."

The sculpture is well on its way to being cast in bronze. I cannot wait to see more photographs.  Thanks for the updates Shidoni. 

Looks like this piece is ready for the next step.