Delft Clay, Sand Casting

I want to brag share this with you. Here is my 13 year old baby's last year's school photo project. The project required him to make hand made medieval artifact. Not thinking very long, he decided to use the materials he had at hand, and he had 3 oz of pure silver and a Delft Clay Sand Casting set. What else could be found in (at the time) a small jewelry workshop?

On the project he got an A+.
At first he made a model of his personal coin, with his proud face and inscription on the back, and his favorite symbol on the other side. Some delft clay was prepared and everything readied for the casting.

 


A blowtorch was readied, and an awesome face was practiced before-hand. :)


 


And this is my favorite photo. I love to photograph melting metal . :)


 


The casting went successively, and the coin was cleaned from bits of burned clay. By the way, I do not suggest preforming a delft clay casting without some good ventilation. Do you remember the smell that always accompanies trains? Well the same smell of burning oil, earth, and coal will be absorbed by the walls. And after a few castings without good ventilation, the room would probably smell like a train depot.


 


 The excess metal is removed.


 


And now the most annoying and consuming part : the finishing of the coin. When it comes to wasting metal, and time, Delft Clay, or Sand Casting, takes the cake, (except for maybe sculpting something out of a piece of silver).


 


My Son chose a very difficult model for casting, because it was two sided,  it was very hard to cast it without damaging the coin. Before attempting tho make the coin, he first planned out where the air vents, and the metal funnel was going to be located. The weight is 79 grams of pure silver. He did the entire project all on his own, and I only helped take photos, and poured the silver into the mold, because holding the torch, and pouring the metal at the same time, is quite hard.


And now my "baby" is professionally melting metal, knows the different stages of readiness of silver, can tell apart pure silver and un-pure silver by it's behavior during the melting. I'm so proud! :)