Mary MacKillop Bust for Schools

Mary MacKillop Bust For Schools.

If you have been following my posts I last mentioned the Bust I had been working on last September 27th 2011 post.

  

Mary MacKillop Bust in clay

Since then I finished the sculpture early December and began looking for the best way to make the sculpture so that it would be affordable for schools to buy.

I was very interested in working with a Smooth-On product called duo Matrix Neo.

I had a sample of the product and produced a very good looking little sample cast.

As the bust was just over life size I wanted to get it working well before we went into production and I wanted to add Bronze powder to it to have a piece similar to cold cast bronze but found as soon as I used the bronze powder, it required more than double the latex to get it to mix and it then set within minutes of mixing.

I went ahead and ordered 3 packs of the duo Matrix along with some retarder to slow the working time.

As it was just before the agent closed for Christmas I ordered and had to wait till the end of January for the delivery from the States.

When the material was delivered, I tried to get it working without any success. I had the agent come out to review the way I mixed it with no better results.

In the end I returned the product and was refunded my money. I really was disappointed because I really liked the look of it so if any one has any experience with this product I would love to get it working the way they show it on U tube.

Working the first coat of Dragon Skin

I hired two men to make a mould out of Smooth-On's " Dragon Skin" and we then looked at other material to make a sturdy cast for schools to buy.

After trying concrete we then looked at working with Epoxy Resin using a gell coat  mixed with fine Bronze powder and a black base colour. The tests worked out very well so we proceeded with casting the first piece and it was rubbed back with 0000 steel wool and looked really close to what a real bronze casting looks like and it took  a patina of Potassium sulphide and I waxed it with some beautiful wax from Sculpt Nouveau also from the USA.

The epoxy was backed up with fibreglass and filled with a resin and aggregate mix which made the whole cast 92.5 kg.

Cast Front and Back