Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Moulds complete and at foundry in Melbourne

I have'nt had time to update until now. Thursday was a busy day and Friday was no different for the two men from the foundry. While Chris was applying RTV rubber, Sean was applying felt strips to a second layer of rubber so that it bonded to the rubber.
While that was being done, Chris and Sean swapped jobs and Sean began to apply Resin to the felt and backed it with two layers of fibreglass matting.
They trimmed the moulds and drilled holes for locking the moulds together.
This took most of Friday and Saturday.
By 5:00 pm Saturday, they were ready to take the moulds from the sculpture. Luckily Pam from the workshop, was on hand to take some photos of the demoulding before the the light faded. I had been at the workshop to supply breakfast and cut up some more fibreglass matting, but went to see a gymnastic competition that my youngest grandaughter was competing in, on the other side of Adelaide, at Marion. (She placed 2nd, over all apparatus and received a silver medal for also placing 2nd, in uneven bars, so we were very excited for her.)
The boys from the foundry were very pleased with the moulds. Early Sunday they came to our place for a cooked breakfast and a shower, before an 8 hour journey back to Melbourne, with smelly moulds in the back of the van.
Thanks to all the visitors and girls from the workshops who looked in on the work being carried out by the foundry. I'm sure they can now appreciate what a lot of work has to be done to get sculpture moulds to the foundry, and yet there is still such a lot of work to be done before it becomes a bronze sculpture in Mary MacKillop Place.

No comments: