This is the casting of a real feather into Bronze. Here is the Alien Video for anyone interested in that. 3D print to Bronze, Alien Queen • 3D print to Bronze, Al...
Very nice, young man. I've been casting for years but mostly replacement parts. I think it's time for me to play around with something artistic. Cheers.
Came here to say, if you dipped the feather in s full bath of wax a few times, it should still look close very close to how it did originally, this is awesome ❤
Sudden idea: Stick 2 feathers of similar size and shape on top of each other with wax. Then remove one of the feathers, leaving its imprint on the otherwise "ugly" backside. The wax layer can be as thick as you want. Maybe both sides get a feather's texture this way.
I should read the comments before I post......although I did suggest cutting the quill down and leaving them stuck together so not quite the same idea but similar
nice, looks good. maybe you can try using a heat gun on the back side. go over it from a distance to smooth out the wax brush marks and even out the wax on the back. it wont have super detail like the front, but it might not look as lumpy and the wax coat would be even. another thing you could try is using 2 feathers. coat one with the wax on the back, then use the heat gun to get the wax soft. then match the other feather to the coated side and press in the detail. when you peel the second feather off, the wax should have some of the detail embedded. a third option might be to use 2 feathers. use your dremel to shave down the quill on the front side of one and the back side of the other so they can fit together back to front but not be too wide. then take the casting wax, coat the back of one, use the heat gun to get the wax soft after application and press the other feather into it and bond it together. it will be a little thicker, but you will have details on both sides. might work
We are inspired by your work.. I picked up a fresh road-killed hawk and we are using your methods to cast a wing in bronze in our home foundry. Thank you for your wonderfully detailed and entertaining videos.
This would be an amazing idea for a reward for accomplishments in literature. When you placed the "feather" in the wooden stand, its gave that impression of a formal ceremony.
Keep pushing the envelope man! Those feathers turned out just how I imagined they would, and agree with your assessment that you could blow it out, but would yield limited improvement as I don't think feathers would create enough ash for it to be an issue. Just as an aside, apparently including borax in the investment creates a much tougher investment that would handle being blown/washed out better, but it also makes cleaning up difficult.
Oh, now you are just showing off!! I like it love it want more of it! Now for the real challenge...cast a spider web! Dun dun dun! The challenge has been laid oh maestro of the melted metal.
The painted one looks really good, but only from one side. Maybe if you double dipped the feather. Try putting two feathers together with a thin layer of wax, like an Oreo cookie. 3D scan the feather and just thicken it a teeny tinny bit and print it in resin and cast that. Smaller feathers might work better because the bronze won't have to travel as far. You could cast a dozen little feathers and choose the best one and throw the rest back in the kiln. You could put one or two on every cast you do just in case it works. A really big plug on the back might let gravity force the metal in. Put one big sprue like a donut around the feather and then cut out the feather from the middle after.
reminds me of the joke "typical nasty weather". Mr Lundgren you are always ahead of me. I still haven't cast my dodecahedron, shelled for almost 2 years. nice as always sir
Just in case you do not already do this. You should wear a respirator when working with dry plaster. Over time the dust can accumulate in your lungs causing silicosis.
Keep trying!! You can definitely cast feathers in bronze. It just really difficult and requires attention to detail. You were correct in assuming the was ash still inside your cast after burning out the wax.
If the issue is not staying hot enough, would it be worth putting some heating channels into the mould? Rather than having a solid lump of investment around the feather, create a network of channels that come close to it, but don't contact it. They are purely there to heat up the mould from the other side. This might help to draw metal into narrow channels. I would guess it would be easiest use something like a waffle iron to build grids of wax (shallow enough that there are holes through it to keep the investment structurally stable), but how they are built really doesn't matter.
Thats very cool, I wonder if you could layer two feathers together with wax to give just a little more thickness ...you need a willing donor of course (an afternoon chasing swans maybe) but I was thinking if you cut off part of the quill then stickthem together with wax it might just be thick enough to get the bronze through the feathery bits, without going clunky Thanks for sharing .
Idea! Dip the feather in wax several times. Itd probably not be as good as a single layer of wax, or imprinting the pattern of another feather onto it, but I'm nevertheless interested in seeing how it'd pan out
before you pour the metal, try flowing flux through the heated mold. flux helps the metal wet out and fill thin spaces. the capillary action it promotes is how they attach dissimilar metals with soldering.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios hi! Thanks for responding. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that video. That's more or less what I was wanting, but maybe little more in depth. Like an intermediate guide or just mentioning in the voiceover what investment you are using or why you do certain things. Another chanel I enjoy a lot is wristwatch revival. He restores vintage watches and tends to go into more detail like "careful with this little spring here, it was born to fly and if it does, good luck finding it". I just think it would be cool if you leaned into that a bit. But I mean it's your channel you do what you want, I'll still be watching, those are just my 2c
you could try to 3d print a little comb, so next time you thicken something up with wax, you can give the wax the same surface as the original. in this case, putting the lines of the feather on the wax.
I feel like you should try dipping another feather in wax, but maybe do another layer or two. Then, like you said, blow out the whole thing before casting. And, IDK if this is thing in the casting world...but I wonder if using something that vibrates a lot would help it flow into the smaller voids more, kinda like when pouring concrete? Or, like, what if you just made a sprue tree that had only the feather, but made it a lot further down in the mold, so you have more weight pushing down on it?
Too much vibration can damage the mold. But longer spurs that cause more hydrologic pressure is definitely effective. However that takes a bigger flask.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios Too much, I'd totally understand. But I recently saw a video by Evan and Katelyn where they made concrete keycaps for a keyboard, and used a very small...er...personal vibration tool to add just enough to it to help the material settle more. For the spurs, is it just the length, or also the overall size that increases the pressure? So, like, same sized flask, set up the Sprue tree so that it's a massive cone shape tapering down to the tip of the feather, with the feather at an angle so it's almost at a 45 if it fits. Then you maximize the pressure on top of it, and maybe help the material settle a bit more in the process. ;)
That’s very cool. I’ve never done w any casting so there’s probably a simple answer to this but can you leave the mold in the kiln that you burnt the feather out with to keep the it hotter and pour your metal in there?
What might happen if you repeatedly dipped the feather to get multiple light coatings on both side? Would it build up enough thickness while still showing detail?
for the wax dipped feather and instead of pouring the metal outside, you leave the mold in the kiln with an amount of bronze on the top that will melt and fill every thin detail? cause if the problem is the bronze cooling too fast, wouldn t more time in the heat will help it settle everywhete?
Possibly but the kiln doesn’t go up to melting temp of bronze. The investment isn’t suppose to get that hot. And If I tried aluminum I worry it would oxidize too much. But they may be a metal that would work for that method.
Great job! What a neat project. I wonder if there is a way to split two very similar feathers in half by shaving the shafts down level with the vane, and attaching them to one another to make a thick feather. Labor intensive for sure, but maybe it's just enough extra thickness with a dip in the wax. Also, do you have a brother who is a cook? You look like and have similar mannerisms to a guy who does home cooking videos on TH-cam. Keep up the great work!
What I imagined is a similar idea -- make a silicone mold of the feather, cut it into two halves along the "plane" of the feather, and then use something to space the halves of the mold apart just a tiny bit before pouring the casting wax into it. Or possibly just use a one-piece silicone mold but find some way to press the casting wax into it so the pressure pushes the silicone apart slightly. Or maybe make the silicone mold with some sort of feature in it so you can pull it apart a bit, instead of trying to use pressure. I can imagine putting a couple of rods in the mold parallel to the central stalk of the feather and about a half-inch on either side of it, and then pulling those rods apart to expand the opening a little before pouring the wax in.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios maybe... I talked too an old timer who ran a bronze art foundry for four decades, and he swore by old school heavy block investment made of plaster, sand and ludo. Big molds with lots of head pressure instead of using jeweller's investment and vacuum assist. He worked in silicon bronze and made some very fine thin-sectioned bird's nests and flowers etc. that way over the years. But we're talking about some very heavy molds here.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios Yes I'm rarted, commented halfway through the vid, you could try again by double soaking in a thinner wax, heating up the mold as humanly possible and blowing through it with a compressor to get a quill with finer detail.
Griding a soft metal on that style of stone is more dangerous than your wire wheel. If it packs the pores it can cause he stone to fracture catastrophically failure.
Very nice, young man. I've been casting for years but mostly replacement parts. I think it's time for me to play around with something artistic. Cheers.
There's a channel that casts mushrooms in a similar way.
I love the “tip” for testing whether the glowing yellow molten metal is still hot.
😆 I’m full of knowledge like that.
Came here to say, if you dipped the feather in s full bath of wax a few times, it should still look close very close to how it did originally, this is awesome ❤
That would be worth a try.
Sudden idea: Stick 2 feathers of similar size and shape on top of each other with wax. Then remove one of the feathers, leaving its imprint on the otherwise "ugly" backside. The wax layer can be as thick as you want. Maybe both sides get a feather's texture this way.
That is a great idea.
Wax is like glue, I don't think it would separate clean like that. But maybe leave them glued together with the wax.
I should read the comments before I post......although I did suggest cutting the quill down and leaving them stuck together so not quite the same idea but similar
@@nelsonx5326 Then you will get a feather with 2 quills
You are setting new standards for bronze sculptures, good work.
Thank you!
You bronze the coolest things! Your channel is never boring!
That’s the goal. Thank you!
@@lundgrenbronzestudiosthanks for sharing your knowledge tho.
nice, looks good. maybe you can try using a heat gun on the back side. go over it from a distance to smooth out the wax brush marks and even out the wax on the back. it wont have super detail like the front, but it might not look as lumpy and the wax coat would be even. another thing you could try is using 2 feathers. coat one with the wax on the back, then use the heat gun to get the wax soft. then match the other feather to the coated side and press in the detail. when you peel the second feather off, the wax should have some of the detail embedded. a third option might be to use 2 feathers. use your dremel to shave down the quill on the front side of one and the back side of the other so they can fit together back to front but not be too wide. then take the casting wax, coat the back of one, use the heat gun to get the wax soft after application and press the other feather into it and bond it together. it will be a little thicker, but you will have details on both sides. might work
Those are great ideas!
I'd like to see you experiment with dipping a feather more than once to see if you can get it thick enough to cast before you lose all of the detail.
It would be worth experimenting with.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios dip it 13 times.,.,.,peace
We are inspired by your work.. I picked up a fresh road-killed hawk and we are using your methods to cast a wing in bronze in our home foundry. Thank you for your wonderfully detailed and entertaining videos.
Good luck! I hope it works out for you!
That’s a beautiful piece of art I would proudly exhibit in my house
You push the limits of what you can do with every new idea and endeavor! This has such beautiful details. Great work!
Dude that looks amazing 🤩 I didn’t think you could get that much detail in it! 💪🏼🤟🏼
I love the detail you captured and it looks great on the wood! Nice Job!
This would be an amazing idea for a reward for accomplishments in literature.
When you placed the "feather" in the wooden stand, its gave that impression of a formal ceremony.
That feather belongs to a seagull btw. Looks like one of its flight feathers, too.
Keep pushing the envelope man!
Those feathers turned out just how I imagined they would, and agree with your assessment that you could blow it out, but would yield limited improvement as I don't think feathers would create enough ash for it to be an issue.
Just as an aside, apparently including borax in the investment creates a much tougher investment that would handle being blown/washed out better, but it also makes cleaning up difficult.
Ooooooh boy you are so talented.......!!!!
Nice, I like the way you present it also.
This is unreal! Very cool 🙂
Oh, now you are just showing off!! I like it love it want more of it! Now for the real challenge...cast a spider web! Dun dun dun! The challenge has been laid oh maestro of the melted metal.
Haha. The spider web might actually be the impossible cast.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios Why do you think I suggested it? Muha muha muha hah ha ha ( maniacal laughter! )
The painted one looks really good, but only from one side.
Maybe if you double dipped the feather.
Try putting two feathers together with a thin layer of wax, like an Oreo cookie.
3D scan the feather and just thicken it a teeny tinny bit and print it in resin and cast that.
Smaller feathers might work better because the bronze won't have to travel as far. You could cast a dozen little feathers and choose the best one and throw the rest back in the kiln. You could put one or two on every cast you do just in case it works.
A really big plug on the back might let gravity force the metal in.
Put one big sprue like a donut around the feather and then cut out the feather from the middle after.
It would be worth some more experimenting.
This is going to blow up, ill invest at 16k.
Also, love your voice dude.
I hope you’re right. Thanks!
reminds me of the joke "typical nasty weather". Mr Lundgren you are always ahead of me. I still haven't cast my dodecahedron, shelled for almost 2 years. nice as always sir
It will be waiting for you when you are ready to cast it.
Particularly nasty weather 😂
Just in case you do not already do this. You should wear a respirator when working with dry plaster. Over time the dust can accumulate in your lungs causing silicosis.
Pristine quills! Beautimous! Even the back is artistic as it speaks to the messy work behind the beautiful artistic face.
That’s a good point! Thank you!
hey thats super cool, the idea crossed my mind once. i may try it sometime.
If you do tag me in the result.
Dental technicians, casting insects all over the world :
"I knew it...he should have done that in the first place"
Mate., you continue to expand that envelope of the possible,
Sweet!
Keep trying!! You can definitely cast feathers in bronze. It just really difficult and requires attention to detail. You were correct in assuming the was ash still inside your cast after burning out the wax.
If you have done this his you should show me some of your end products. I’d like to see them.
Really good work!
Thats so cool
And almost sure that this would be something you would find in the ruins of some excentric nobles house lol
It will last thousands of years if it’s not intentionally destroyed. I wonder where it will be 1000 years from now.
Very nice mate and very nice technique 😍😍
Amazing work and shot well!
Thank you!
If the issue is not staying hot enough, would it be worth putting some heating channels into the mould? Rather than having a solid lump of investment around the feather, create a network of channels that come close to it, but don't contact it. They are purely there to heat up the mould from the other side. This might help to draw metal into narrow channels. I would guess it would be easiest use something like a waffle iron to build grids of wax (shallow enough that there are holes through it to keep the investment structurally stable), but how they are built really doesn't matter.
That possibly could help.
do you do a burnout cycle for the wax?
Yes. This was for a resin 3D print but it’s the same burn out cycle. With some organics though it takes longer than a wax burn out.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios i see and how many hours it takes?
could you wax just the the rear side to increase the detail on the front
I mean…that’s what I did.
Thats very cool, I wonder if you could layer two feathers together with wax to give just a little more thickness ...you need a willing donor of course (an afternoon chasing swans maybe) but I was thinking if you cut off part of the quill then stickthem together with wax it might just be thick enough to get the bronze through the feathery bits, without going clunky
Thanks for sharing .
Idea! Dip the feather in wax several times. Itd probably not be as good as a single layer of wax, or imprinting the pattern of another feather onto it, but I'm nevertheless interested in seeing how it'd pan out
That might work.
before you pour the metal, try flowing flux through the heated mold. flux helps the metal wet out and fill thin spaces. the capillary action it promotes is how they attach dissimilar metals with soldering.
Flux is something I need to learn more about.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios i cant say it will work or even give an improved end result. its just an idea i had.
pretty dope my guy! be proud of the stuff you make!
It’s a lot of fun to make it.
As always
Well done 😊
Thank you!
I'd love for you to give a little more info for people who want to get started. Like what investment you use. What mix of bronze? Literature etc.
I gave some of that info in this video here.
9 Things I Didn't Know Before Building a foundry: Casting 101
th-cam.com/video/HYGBH33dnsc/w-d-xo.html
@@lundgrenbronzestudios hi! Thanks for responding. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that video. That's more or less what I was wanting, but maybe little more in depth. Like an intermediate guide or just mentioning in the voiceover what investment you are using or why you do certain things. Another chanel I enjoy a lot is wristwatch revival. He restores vintage watches and tends to go into more detail like "careful with this little spring here, it was born to fly and if it does, good luck finding it". I just think it would be cool if you leaned into that a bit. But I mean it's your channel you do what you want, I'll still be watching, those are just my 2c
So if a candle gets thicker with every dip, wouldn't a feather do the same?
I think you're right about the ash not so much the surface area..
With or without ash. thin with high surface area is challenging to get completely filled. Especially in sand casting.
So cool!
you could try to 3d print a little comb, so next time you thicken something up with wax, you can give the wax the same surface as the original. in this case, putting the lines of the feather on the wax.
That would be an option
Shows just what can be achieved by persevering
I like learning about this thanks master caster man. 5:40 I legit lol'd
Damn that’s cool!!
Have you try'd silver ? This is really nice. New sub for you my friend
I never have tried silver. It’s so expensive!
I feel like you should try dipping another feather in wax, but maybe do another layer or two. Then, like you said, blow out the whole thing before casting. And, IDK if this is thing in the casting world...but I wonder if using something that vibrates a lot would help it flow into the smaller voids more, kinda like when pouring concrete?
Or, like, what if you just made a sprue tree that had only the feather, but made it a lot further down in the mold, so you have more weight pushing down on it?
Too much vibration can damage the mold. But longer spurs that cause more hydrologic pressure is definitely effective. However that takes a bigger flask.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios Too much, I'd totally understand. But I recently saw a video by Evan and Katelyn where they made concrete keycaps for a keyboard, and used a very small...er...personal vibration tool to add just enough to it to help the material settle more.
For the spurs, is it just the length, or also the overall size that increases the pressure? So, like, same sized flask, set up the Sprue tree so that it's a massive cone shape tapering down to the tip of the feather, with the feather at an angle so it's almost at a 45 if it fits. Then you maximize the pressure on top of it, and maybe help the material settle a bit more in the process. ;)
@@BenKDesigns the pressure increase is mainly controlled by the height. I diameter isn’t as important.
That’s very cool. I’ve never done w any casting so there’s probably a simple answer to this but can you leave the mold in the kiln that you burnt the feather out with to keep the it hotter and pour your metal in there?
It was put in my vacuum chamber to help pull the metal through the mold so it has to come out of the kiln.
Amazing
What might happen if you repeatedly dipped the feather to get multiple light coatings on both side? Would it build up enough thickness while still showing detail?
Each coating would cover up the detail of the feather. It wouldn’t be long until you couldn’t see any detail in the feathery bits.
love that well done
for the wax dipped feather and instead of pouring the metal outside, you leave the mold in the kiln with an amount of bronze on the top that will melt and fill every thin detail? cause if the problem is the bronze cooling too fast, wouldn t more time in the heat will help it settle everywhete?
Possibly but the kiln doesn’t go up to melting temp of bronze. The investment isn’t suppose to get that hot. And If I tried aluminum I worry it would oxidize too much. But they may be a metal that would work for that method.
So close of the perfect result, i wouldn't stop there.
Maybe with a specific coat more resistant to heat so you can make it thiner ?
Good job anyway
There may be someone out there that has the perfect method.
Awesome man! New subscriber ✌🏻
Thank you!
fantastic
Maybe double dip? Or after hand paintint it with wax use brush to give it those lines like ne real feather?
That’s an option.
Great job! What a neat project. I wonder if there is a way to split two very similar feathers in half by shaving the shafts down level with the vane, and attaching them to one another to make a thick feather. Labor intensive for sure, but maybe it's just enough extra thickness with a dip in the wax.
Also, do you have a brother who is a cook? You look like and have similar mannerisms to a guy who does home cooking videos on TH-cam.
Keep up the great work!
That could work. Same size feathers and glue them together with wax. And trim them even. Potentially?
Nope. No brother who is a cook.
What I imagined is a similar idea -- make a silicone mold of the feather, cut it into two halves along the "plane" of the feather, and then use something to space the halves of the mold apart just a tiny bit before pouring the casting wax into it. Or possibly just use a one-piece silicone mold but find some way to press the casting wax into it so the pressure pushes the silicone apart slightly.
Or maybe make the silicone mold with some sort of feature in it so you can pull it apart a bit, instead of trying to use pressure. I can imagine putting a couple of rods in the mold parallel to the central stalk of the feather and about a half-inch on either side of it, and then pulling those rods apart to expand the opening a little before pouring the wax in.
Silicon bronze is awesome for welding stainless steel exhaust
It is amazing stuff.
Its too bad you weren't able to capture the detail of both sides of the feather... But it's pretty amazing you came as close as you did! Nice 👍
Maybe there is a way to get both side.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios maybe... I talked too an old timer who ran a bronze art foundry for four decades, and he swore by old school heavy block investment made of plaster, sand and ludo. Big molds with lots of head pressure instead of using jeweller's investment and vacuum assist. He worked in silicon bronze and made some very fine thin-sectioned bird's nests and flowers etc. that way over the years. But we're talking about some very heavy molds here.
After burning out the medium, couldn't you draw the ash out with your vacuum pump>
A vacuum is an option for removing ash.
Very nice!
broooo, next up: casting a tardigrade in bronze 😁 nice work
😆 that would be an awesome challenge.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios actually I guess you already have we just cant see em ???
You didn't just thicken it up, when you poured the mixture unto the feather, it wetted it and went into the feather fibers, blocking the bronze.
Maybe on the first one but that wouldn’t have happened on the wax soaked one.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios Yes I'm rarted, commented halfway through the vid, you could try again by double soaking in a thinner wax, heating up the mold as humanly possible and blowing through it with a compressor to get a quill with finer detail.
where do you get your bronze from?
Sometimes I make it. Sometimes I buy it from Lancaster foundry.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios What are the ratios for Bronze ?
@@TomokosEnterprize I made a video on making it. How to Make Silicon Bronze: Beyond Tin and Copper.
th-cam.com/video/JCH7w0KRSZ4/w-d-xo.html
@@lundgrenbronzestudios Thanks a bunch. I may play with bronze and silver to form a wildcat metal for making Sterling. I won't know but I will try eh.
Griding a soft metal on that style of stone is more dangerous than your wire wheel. If it packs the pores it can cause he stone to fracture catastrophically failure.
What style of stone is used for this then?
insane, its almost like a fossil.
It is!
Pre heating the mold might help with the very thin stuff.
I take the mold right out of the kiln at about 1400°F. You can see the silicon rubber ignite when I put it in the vacuum chamber.
@@lundgrenbronzestudios thanks for the reply. Top notch work, very inspiring!
nice job
nice !
New challenge, try with a peacock feather please !
I’ll need a bigger flask for that one.
Superbe
Hey I'm early nice feather
You were first!
5:35 - In a pinch a fingertip will work as well.
Maybe try sand casting you may get better results
Not sure that would work.
haha weird this came up in my feed i was electroplating feathers recently
Oh that’s awesome!
Spin cast.
That would take a big spinner
you could glue two feathers with wax
it would be a chicken sandwich
That might work!
Noice
5:35 🤣🤣
Grey goose
🙏🏼
Goose or turkey
Probably goose then because I found them by a pond.
What if you dipped the feather multiple, times until it was the desired thickness?
I could but it would loose all the detail.