This week I worked at the Metal Atelier and at the Gold Coop.
I was with Anna again, this time, sand casting.
She had prepared the cast – I was very late to meet her, on the third day of a come down.
The process is fairly simple, you make a mould of your object by pressing it between two canisters of compacted sand. You powder it, to stop it sticking I guess. Then you create passages for air to escape so the metal can more easily run. You carve a funnel to pour the metal into. And then you take it to the crucible.
You heat the silver in the crucible (I think that’s what it’s called) until it starts to glow green and become molten like mercury. Then, with the flame still on it so it doesn’t cool, you lift it to the cast (again, not sure of the terminology) and pour quickly. If you don’t keep heating or you pour too slowly then the metal will not run all the way down your cast. This happened to me once.
It all happens very quickly – and then you take it outside (it’s safe to touch the mould soon after pouring) to open up so as not to inhale any silver fumes. And then you’ve got a match that looks like a tree trunk with branches coming off it (the air holes fill up.
You take a bone saw, the same as they use for cutting up bodies, and cut the base off. Then with snipers you take the branches off. Use the saw again to cut off the bit that’s seeped between the sand. I wonder if I didn’t tamp the sand down enough (for which you use the handle of a ring something or other. Then it’s working with a file (away from you). Then polish it with the electric thingy.
In the Gold Coop I finished it with a different method – using sand paper.
Anyway, less detail. In Fritz’s place there are matches too – made by a Finnish girl.