The Rolls Royce of shoe horns, part one...

The start...

I'm getting the absolute Rolls Royce of shoe horns.
In an act of extreme self indulgence I'm getting the finest museum quality shoe horn ever made!
The most uniquely perfect one that money can't buy.
I don't own it yet, and money can't buy it, because I haven't finished making it.
But I've started.

But why? I hear you ask...

When it comes to sneakers I'm supremely lazy.
I never untie the laces, I just jam my feet in and stamp down, so the heel area is always the first to go since it gets turned inside out every time I put them on.
I can still hear my mum's voice in the back of my head all these years later.
And I still ignore it (sorry mum!).

Because my overall body shape is essentially a bowling ball perched atop some very long skinny legs, I'm also reluctant to bend all the way down. It would be like asking a stick insect to do push ups with a bag of nails on its back. So most of the maneuvering of the sneakers occurs with my feet.

The hunt is on...

Naturally, after only a few decades of this I went on a hunt for a shoe horn.
I wondered if they still existed. Didn't they go out with the ark?
I found one in about ten seconds at Wal-Mart for around $6.50, and it works great.
It has a nice long handle and a scoopy bottom, so now I can apply sneakers to my feet hassle free.

But while it functions flawlessly, it looks like a cheap piece of crap and I want a shoe horn that could live in a museum.
Then I can use it every day and feel like an Egyptian deity each and every time I put my sneakers on.
It's just the way I am, and I'm sure Egyptian deities were like that too.
You can call me old fashioned if you like!

Diddling tree frog race car...

I'm still diddling around with the design. I might go with just what I originally had in mind, or maybe change it a bit. Perhaps make it a bit longer (but only if it doesn't mess up it's race car good looks).

Of course no shoe horn worth its museum quality salt would be complete without a tree frog sitting on the handle. Or perhaps some other critter.
And of course it will have to be made of something timeless and durable.
Mmmm.
Bronze would seem like a good choice!

So enjoy these pics as the Rolls Royce of shoe horns begins to take shape, and stay tuned of course for further updates...

I started out with something like this in mind...

Here's my drawing covered with wax paper, and some wax rods nearby...

Melting the wax 'carrots' in a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water. Just like how you'd melt chocolate. Mmmm. Chocolate...

Strangely I saw a face like a bear wearing a bellhop's cap in the melting wax. Could it be the fumes...?

The wax has been poured over the wax paper. It's hard to tell, but I could just see the drawing through the wax. You can see I used my business card as a squeegee, and I left the oven glove floating around for scale...

I cut out the shape with a knify type tool and peeled the wax paper off the back. Some got a bit stuck, so there's probably a better way of doing that I don't know about...

While the wax was still quite warm I cunningly shaped it around various tubes around the house. Vacuum cleaner, light stands, you name it. Then I popped a tree frog where I was thinking of having one, and made a hole for a leather cord or chain to go through.

The red wax shoe horn shape is getting molded (without the tree frog), so I'll have harder wax duplicates to play with later, for the next exciting installment of the Rolls Royce of shoe horns...

Oh, and don't forget of course, the end of this month is only a few days away, and is the DEADLINE for entering my latest win-a-mouse contest (click HERE).

Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

My new butterfly salad toad sculpture is finished.

I suppose a butterfly is the equivalent of a cobb salad if you're a toad.
Meaty bit and flimsy bits all on the same plate.

Since my earlier post showing the original sculpture in April, Lee Wilson has made a mold of it, waxes have been pulled from the mold and been cast in bronze, metal work has been done, and then a traditional patina applied in the usual way (heat, spray on chemicals, and brush on paste wax while it's still hot).

Lee tried a little experiment during the molding process. The normal method for hollow sculpture is to paint hot liquid wax into the mold one layer at a time. But since he got his new toy, a wax injector (for doing smaller, solid pieces) he thought he'd try and fit a second mold portion from beneath so he could squirt wax in under pressure and make the wax in a minute instead of half an hour.
After experimenting with different temperatures and adjusting the second part of the mold, he decided he couldn't do it (the waxes were coming out with missing bits), so it was back to doing it the old fashioned way.
No harm in trying though. Here's the freshly cast bronze before metalwork and patina.And below it's finished and sitting next to a can for scale.
My website, and Etsy store.

Is that a frog in your fridge...?

What self respecting sculptor of critters hasn't had a frog in their fridge at one time or another?
Well, it's not a real frog. And it's actually more of a toad with its prominent parotid glands and all. No warts though. Oliver Cromwell would not have been impressed (the puritanical fun hater who outlawed parties and who insisted on his portrait being done 'warts and all').
My toad has no warts. Kind of a frog/toad hybrid.
Trog? Froad?
Hybrids are all the rage these days!
But why is he in the fridge?
Nope, he's not made of chocolate.
But a very soft wax that tends to droop when it gets warm (it gets really sticky and awkward just from the heat of my fingers).
I'd started him a couple of years ago and just got the urge to finish it, so prior to taking it over to be molded I kept him where he'd stay nice and cool.
You can see he's been shamelessly raiding our butterfly crisper.

By the way, that stuff in the white pot will melt your guts. It's just nasty. Green chili #2 from the Horseman's Haven in Santa Fe. I'll stick to the regular version from now on, that's plenty hot enough.

Website here.

Next steps in bringing my tiny elephant sculpture to bronze...

Here we are again, with my teeny tiny version of 'Senior moment'.
In the last installment I demonstrated how I made the original in a wax based clay.
So how do we turn one finished sculpture into a bunch of wax replicas ready for the foundry to then turn them into bronze?
My buddy Lee Wilson got busy making a mold. He's molded everything from the almost microscopic to bigger than a horse (see behind?). Nothing fazes Lee!
Here he is holding a work in progress on my miniature elephant...
The silicone rubber master mold is floppy (that's the yellow stuff), and needs a hard mother mold which can be screwed tightly around it to hold it in place (that's the white stuff).
I wonder is mold language developed similar to tool language, what with their male and female parts and all?With all the silicone rubber 'chew toys' laying about I was surprised and a bit nervous to discover from experience that mold makers seem to like to have a dog or two about the place. Must be the loneliness of the job.
Anyhow, Lee's are extremely well trained and only once got interested in sniffing the rubber when he was molding some cow bones for someone!
One rebuke put an end to that and they have NEVER messed with his handiwork, so I'm confident leaving my molds over at his place for extended periods.
So here he is tightening the bolts to keep the whole thing snugly together (you'll see why next)...
This is Lee's new toy! It's a wax injector. So for smaller stuff he can squirt wax into the mold under pressure (which will squirt out all over the place if the mold isn't securely held tight). It's quicker and more effective than painting the wax into the mold by hand on small things like this.

He experimented a bit to get the wax temperature and pressure optimal for various sized pieces. He mixed some pigment in with a blue green wax to make it a nice natural clay color. That way it's easier to see if any seam lines need cleaning up than if the wax is a day-glo color (plenty of waxes are very strange colors). You can see a few of my turtles, toads and rabbits floating about on the table too.
That metal plate with a hole in it is what he holds over the bottom of the mold when he squirts the wax in. Then it's left to cool for 20 or 30 minutes.
If the mold only has a narrow opening, he'll just use a washer.
Alright, let's pop that thing open and see what we've got!
Off comes the mother mold...
Wait for it...
Ta-daaaa!!!!
And Lee has given birth to yet another teeny tiny wax elephant. Didn't hurt did it?
Family photo below.
Strange gene pool I'd say.If I can get the foundry to take some pics of sprueing up the waxes, investing and breaking them open I'll add them to a future post, then finish up with metal chasing (should hardly be any except grinding the bottoms), and patina which I will do myself.

My website here

'Bumper to bumper' turtle sculpture-work in progress 2

I got my waxes back from the foundry and with the cunning use of a griddle (in background of photo) to melt down my critters, and some clay to work on new necks, legs, tweak heads etc, I'll have a nice crew of semi submerged turtles to take back again.
Here it is a bit further along (notice the front one has no legs yet).

Once finished and at the foundry they'll each be molded, from which new waxes will be pulled to be invested in ceramic shell, and then the waxes will be replaced with bronze.
If the foundry takes any pics of the progress I'll post 'em right here.
More critters at SteveWorthingtonArt.com