Blue Links

1/2' x 1/2' 5"

Clay cast glass with clay left on the surface.

 

 

How Blue Links were made

First I made them in wax.

I did that by dipping a solid glass piece with the same shape in to melted wax. I had made it in the hotshop earlier.(I had put vaseline on the glass so the wax would not stick to the glass. I could also have formed something in clay and smeard some vaseline on it and dipped that. When the wax is hard you open it up where it will be the easiest to get out the piece inside. In my case it was on the side. This method of mine is a great way to skip the plaster mold stage if you don't have to have any repeated detail in your wax piece. You can always make your marks into the wax afterwards like I did in this case.
( see picture above.)

Here are two forms that show how the mold looked like for the glass in Blue Links.

The only difference is that these were cast separately.

The technique I used is based on bronze casting techniques that are thought to originate from ancient Africa and Asia. My version of the method is as follows:

Blue Links during the wax burnout step.

To get the Blue Links out of the mold I used a hammer and an old sharpened skrewdriver.  

I was not fully comfortable with this method and decided to find a different way to create a closed off mold. My main problem was the cracking of the clay because I had used a wax type that was hard and the clay I used contracted so much around it so there where lots of cracks that showed up on the final pieces. So what I do now is to put paper mache around a form that I like and take that off like it was wax, talked about above and glue it back together and smear my clay over it. The moisture from the clay will soften up the paper and make it give as the clay dries without changing the form or cracks forming on the clay. You can see how I work with that method on this page. This way I don't have to deal with wax burnout and I'm recycling my junk mail.

 

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