The foundry

... is very intriguing place and there are plenty of objects to photograph. There are all kind of devices and pieces of machinery.

Today we prepared the plaster around our channeled wax models, there were many different stages. Hands and clothes got dirty but now all wax molds are inside plaster mantles, the process is called investing.

Wax models need to be surrounded with a material that will cover it smoothly when wet and withstand high temperatures when fired in the kiln. Once the plaster mixture (investment) has set hard, the plaster mantles are placed in a kiln, slowly heated to around 750° C and held at that temperature until all wax residues have disappeared.

Here is one shot of the investing process

And here the whole flickr set