iron lintel casting

The day dawned bright and by lunchtime the mould was finally finished; Eden had mended the furnace and the ‘bull ladle’ was also fixed; the fork lift was in place to take the weight of the ladle; Michael had cracked the scrap iron (thanks Michael) and weighed the bags of coke and iron. Eden must have laid the bed of coke in the furnace when I was working on the mould indoors; the air blowers and gas tanks were in place. It was decided by the tech team to go ahead with the pour.

The furnace was lit and the air blower turned on to force the temperature up to melting point; the gas blower was turned on to the ‘bull ladle’ to heat it up ready to receive the molten iron when the furnace was tapped.

The photo above shows Michael adding a charge of coke and scrap iron to the top of the furnace. As the iron scrap heats it becomes molten and drops to the bottom of the furnace. When enough iron for the pour (over 65kg) is molten at the bottom of the furnace the bung is broken so the iron can run into the ‘ladle/crucible’.

The weight of the iron is taken by the fork lift and Michael and George manoeuvred the bull ladle into position and tipped it to pour the molten iron into the mould. There was a delay when the fork lift wouldn’t start and an alternative lifting device was tried before reverting to the fork lift.

 

Towards the end of the pour the bull ladle got caught in some way and the pour was aborted. The mould was showing metal through the air vents, so the general view was that the pour could be complete. The team have reviewed the equipment and made safety alterations since.

The metal needed to cool before I could peek inside, so I left it for the weekend. On Monday I removed the mould pieces to reveal an iron lintel, yeah

 

Thanks to Scottish Sculpture Workshop tech team and George Beasley.

Wade Gallery and Fisher Gallery Summer Exhibitions

However, if you want to see my work there are several pieces at the Wade Gallery in Elie, as shown above. The Wade Gallery opens at weekends until August 18th.

Jan and Richard at the Fisher Gallery have re-opened for the Pittenweem Arts Festival and have several pieces of mine in a silver copper alloy and in iron.

So although I’m not at showing at Pittenweem Arts Festival this year there is an opportunity to see and buy my work in the East Neuk over the festival period.

Keny, Fraser and Nicola are also at other venues this year.

Clachtoll broch proposed iron piece

Finally I got a weather window to start work on the second piece of my residency.

We got a tent erected near to the broch, in the lee of the stones from the rockfall in the broch that the restoration project removed in season one. It was surprisingly easy to heave the stone lintel into the tent on Day 1 and surprisingly uncomfortable working in and out the tent. A lot of climbing in and out bent double and kneeling on uneven rocks was involved over the week. Some days were sunny and some grey and cold, nearly all were windy, with the wind battering the tent onto you as you worked.

So the process was:- firstly brush the bits off, then a layer of oil, which with hindsight was a bad idea; followed by a thin mix of silicon to pick up the details – because of the low temperatures and maybe insufficient mixing of the catalyst this seemed determined to follow gravity onto the groundsheet. However there was no choice but to continue, this time with a silicon layer with thickener. By then it was time to call it an end to Day 2. Although there were plans to return that night it was Day 3 that was spent putting on the third and final silicon layer with thickener. There was now a mighty fine silicon mould, but no way of knowing whether layer 1 had worked out.

Day 4 was onto the plaster and jute mother mould. I had a long and supportive conversation with the super helpful guy from Special Plasters before starting out. The first layer again seemed determined to make a mould of the ground sheet, but then we discovered that it was going off in the plaster puddles and this mix was perfect for the jute layers. I was paranoid that I’d make a plaster mould that couldn’t be removed, or carried out over the beach cobbles, so I designed a 6 part mould. I made little clay walls for each section and we filled them with three layers of plaster soaked jute with support straps.

When I removed the clay wall on each piece I oiled the surface and designed a wedge to ease the separation of the sections. After the third section there was a mishap with the scales and we swapped for a different set. This seemed to hugely improve the consistency of the plaster from there on; and the job speeded up because there was no need to wait for the pools on the groundsheet to go off. The number of sections meant that the work went on into Day 5.

However the plaster mould came off in sections as planned. Then the moment of truth, would the silicon mould have laminated, would the first layer have been successful? It was an anti climax, but a very welcome one, when it just lifted off and there it was, the first phase of a long process successfully completed. Perseverance paid off and I came away with a silicon mould that nestles in a plaster mother-mould.

Clachtoll Broch residency

I went back to Assynt for a week in May; and the weather was kind, so lots of work was done.

With the invaluable help of Nigel Goldie, we got the Community Bronzes installed in the bedrock around the Clachtoll broch. A lot of lugging in and out of generators, drills, glue and the bronzes themselves was involved. I had agreed which rocks were outside the historic area, but on land where we had permission, and Nigel did the drilling and glueing.

I’m hoping that they will weather and patinate over the years, I started the patination process with sea water and beeswax resist. They are mainly on the Stoer approach, but there are a few on the Clachtoll side. So if you are on the site do try and find all forty four of them.

The main group of thirty-five include all the ones designed and carved in beeswax by the Clachtoll school pupils at a workshop in the Glen Canisp art studio. They also did pewter casting in sand, the same process as Iron Age casters would have used, and which I used for these bronzes (although in updated materials). Please refer to earlier posts for more on the bronzes.

Thirty five is the estimated size of the extended family group who lived in the broch at any one time. The design choices reflect the range of ages and interests of the people involved, a local community working together.

Can you find the bone comb? Maybe a plan of the broch? A panda or a Pod?

It’s a great collection of designs and styles and I hope it’ll give visitors to the broch pleasure, stimulate ideas and trigger narratives; celebrating the local community and the people who have been involved in the broch project.

Perhaps some people will think of the metalwork and how the broch residents will have traded for cast bronze products, even if they didn’t smelt and cast bronze themselves.

Iron Age bronze working

We had such fun at the final public event for the Clachtoll Broch project.

Uist Corrigan (who is now at Edinburgh College of Art) joined me and some local folk and volunteer archaeologists. (That’s Uist keeping an eye on the furnace)

We had the bellows from SSW and built the furnace using local clay, sand and horse dung.

We had some local charcoal courtesy of Chris (although most of it came from the Chinese wholesalers in Dundee). Heather Fulton took loads of photos, some of which I’m using here.

We started before dusk and did the final copper smelt of the project.

Just about everyone helped with the bellows, it’s not so easy, but it’s sociable, thanks all who joined in.

We cast the two community bronzes which were lost wax cast.

This is burning out the wax.

Pouring the bronze and, below checking out the crucible for the next pour.

One of the bronzes was a bear foot print, designed by Bill.

I had spent the previous week preparing the waxes, adding runners and risers and then  dipping them in a clay slurry mix to build up layers of mould which was then finished by enclosing in a cob clay with a pouring funnel.

We kept the furnace going (and the bellow workers) to pour the last bronzes – One closed oil sand 2-part mould, an open sand box with local sand and clay mix; and a closed 2-part mould (although we ran out of bronze in the end)

Most people went up to hear Gordon’s talk, but I’d promised Mandy Haggith that we’d try a copper alloy. So we switched to the hand blower to melt the copper, including from the local smelting, and added some tin grain to get a very local bronze alloy.

The open sand mould was Roz’s bird over waves design; and the closed one Stuart’s panda:-

The next morning I said goodbye to the Art Studio for 2018 and headed back to my studio to finish the final bronzes.

My thanks to everyone for making the Clachtoll broch art project such good fun.

NEOS packing list 1

Just taking some quick pictures before packing my pieces for North East Open Studios (NEOS) which previews next Friday. The work will be displayed at Art in the Buchat. Glenbuchat. Do pop along if you are in the area.

This is a damascus steel bowl on a burr wood stand, it’s so tactile.

Pittenweem Arts Festival 2018

Pittenweem Arts Festival is on again, do head down to Water Wynd, Venue 70 to see us. (That’s Keny Drew, Nicola Wiltshire, Frazer Reid and I) The net loft looks really good this year with better lighting and the introduction of white fabric to lift the space.

I have a selection of copper, iron and bronze bowls as well as some jewellery.

The allure of copper – Stone to Bowl

Alongside the traditional copper casting project I have done a copper/silver cast; using plumber’s copper and silver.

and two-part sand moulds. This is partly sustainable, with all materials being recycled; but the heat used is gas.

One of the pieces sold unfinished at ENOS 2018. The bowl has a metal ‘pebble’ inset, a blue heat patina and is almost clean copper on the exterior because I used a different greensand on the outside.

Some learning – try different sands to give cleaner surfaces but retain textures, cost in the silver, keep experimenting, copper is an attractive metal although challenging to work with.

Iron Casting photos from Studio RoRo

I have some great photos of the Iron Pour that Steve and I supervised at SSW, thanks to Ross Fraser Maclean of Studio RoRo

A view into the inferno

This is George Beasley lighting the furnace for his demonstration run.

This is the team discussing roles, the furnace is running on blown air to maintain and build up heat having been lit with the gas torch.

Adding coke to the furnace onto a charge of scrap iron. The iron scrap melts and drops down to the bottom of the furnace. It is then tapped from the bottom into a crucible for pouring.

Heating the crucible ready for it to receive molten iron for pouring into moulds.

Yvonne taking notes for the log so we know how the furnace is running.

Molten iron tapped from the furnace flowing into the crucible for pouring

Andrew and Uist pouring iron

My sand moulds with clay along the joins to minimize the amount of burning to the boxes.

Eden and I checking how the beach-sand moulds held up

Dropping the bottom when the last tap has been used. This coke can be cleaned and reused.