Even more 'Nosey' how it's done...

Back in May I posted twice with various stages of making Nosey mouse from sculpting through casting, with all the steps involved.
There were some missing steps, some more of which are now filled in courtesy of Miles Anderson's pics.
His email is miles (funny 'at' squiggle) 3rivers.net
About all that's left is patina application, which I might add later.
The molten bronze is poured into a canister of investment material, which used to contain wax replicas of Nosey, but the wax has been melted out earlier leaving mouse shaped cavities inside the plaster like material. The wax mice were attached to a wax stick which made it to the surface of the canister. That is what leaves the hole down the middle into which the bronze is poured in order to find its way to the mice. To see the previous stages check out my Nosey posts in May.


The white investment material is cleaned away from the bronze once the bronze has cooled.Here's the pair of Noseys which need to be cut off the main sprue and have their tails welded on. Then they get 'chased', which is where they get all evidence of having been attached to a sprue removed, then they get sandblasted, then they get a patina (stay tuned)...
Lots more mice and other stuff on my website.

The birth of Nosey mouse

It was in the last couple of days of 2006 that Nosey was born.
At least in clay. There was still the trial by fire that had to come before bronzes would emerge.
First I took lots of pictures of the real Nosey, nosing around.

Then I poked and prodded and added to my blob of wax based clay.

I kept poking and prodding and adding until finished.

A fairly lengthy process followed whereby a mold was made (bad news for the clay version, it gets a bit trashed in the process).

Then wax duplicates come from the mold (good news for the immortality of Nosey).

The fine folks at Anderson Enterprise are responsible for casting my mice.

After they've each been invested in their own one time breakable molds, the wax is melted out, and bronze poured in its place. Then they are broken out (sounds very wild west), cleaned up (a bit like me after an exciting feed), patinated and...
...Voila, Nosey mouse is immortal (unless there's ever a countrywide sweep for bronze mice to melt down and use for tiny cannons).Click here to see lots more of my sculptures on my website.