Bronze!

I have wanted to be able to cast my own bronze pieces since I first did lost wax bronze in 1985 in Senior Sculpture Seminar.  I finally got there this weekend!  It was more than a little bit nerve-wracking.  I was heating the metal for my first pour and it wasn't melting.  I started getting flashbacks to my last attempt in 1994 when I had a primitive set-up and the furnace just didn't have the juice to melt the bronze.  I was doing it just like we did in class - what could be wrong?  All the little mental hamsters were running around in my head panicking:  
"Oh my God! We're doomed to failure!"
"All that money wasted you idiot!"
"We should have stayed home and darned socks you moron!"
And then the sleeping polar bear in the back of my head opened one eye and said two words:
"MORE POWER"

Duh.  I turned the torch up, and it melted.  Unfortunately I was still discombobulated enough  that I forgot to turn the vacuum puller on and tipped the crucible too fast, so half the bronze ended up on the machine, on the counter, and on the floor.  So I ended up taking this nice wax tree:

And turning it into this pile of bronze poop:

Luckily I calmed down and the second mold went much better:

This is what you should end up with - an exact replica of the wax tree in bronze.  If you look carefully you'll see one of the rings didn't fill completely.  I thought about it for a while and decided I hadn't let the bronze get hot enough.  It had just gotten past the slushy stage (yes, metal gets slushy. It's a very weird sensation.  It's just like stirring a margarita except that it's 1800 degrees warmer.)

Saturday I made a second set of molds, and things went much better.  Again, I forgot to turn on the vacuum on the first flask, but remembered 2 seconds after I poured the metal, so I only lost one of the two fittings.  The second flask went great.

I'm sure this weekend will go even better, but I consider this a pretty good haul for my first solo casting attempt with a new set-up: 

You should see these pieces again as part of completed knives & scabbards.  That is if I can tear myself away from sculpting and casting long enough to actually put a knife together.