As I type this, I'm looking at the first bronze bell I have ever molded. OK, technically it isn't the
first, but rather
one of the first. I molded six boxes today, and each box has four bells. The boxes are all broken out at once, so I have no idea if this is my first, fifth, or 24th bell. I didn't have as many problems as I expected. Of course, as you would expect, I was making very simple designs on one of the smallest bells we make (the
135 bell, for the curious). Here is a picture of mine right out of the mold. Other than brushing the foundry sand off with a wire brush, nothing has been done to this yet.
Tomorrow, the bottom edge will be ground flat, the outside wire-wheeled, the top drilled, the clapper installed, and chain attached to the top. Then it will get dunked in a muriatic acid bath, and left under wet burlap for a day or so until it has a red-green-blue patina finish.
Obviously, I still have more than plenty to learn, but I can say that I know more now than I did 24 hours ago.
2 comments:
From the link you provided:
"Each bell bears a unique design handcrafted by a skilled artisan."
So does that make you a skilled artisan? :-)
Yea, I got a giggle out of that when I read it. I don't consider three lines and a dot "art." Then again, someone once hung a blank canvas in one of the big east coast museums and called it the "ultimate expression in minimalism." So maybe my bell qualifies as the "ultimate expression in linearity" and the dot is just a minimalist line.
Seriously, I would consider a couple of the foundry people to be "artists." The rest, including myself, would be more correctly labeled "craftsmen." My boss taught me that pattern in about five minutes. I pretty much exhausted its possibilities today on the two dozen bells I made. Tomorrow, one of my coworkers is going to teach me another, which I will play with for the rest of the week. That ain't art; that's a learned craft.
Which makes that false advertising? ;-)
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