Its been a long cold winter spent in Jon Rodney Jones’ metal workshop. JRJ is the kind of person who if you say can I do such and such, he will say yes. This is in some part the truth but taking on a project of this kind should come with a warning! Yes you can; but its going to be a long, hard, painful process! That will teach me to be full of bright ideas. I do however feel so privileged to have been able to learn how to cast in metal, to pour molton bronze is quite something. I am also very grateful that Jon allowed me to be involved in the whole process from making the moulds to angle grinding the finished piece. Mostly I am grateful to still have all my fingers and my eyebrows!

Here are some photos of the process of casting metal handles:

Part 1: clay former and silicone mould

Part 2: Casting in wax and then shaping and moulding

Part 3: The wax gets covered in a plaster type solution, this takes a long time to build up the layers to make a strong mould.

Part 4: Lost wax

Part 4: Metal casting

Part 5: Cleaning up, grinding back the metal and fitting to the ceramic sculpture

I would like to say never again but…