Bronzing Arnold Schwarzenegger

Is there anyone in the world who doesn't recognize this guy? I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger. Let's make the most recognizable bronze in the world. This sculpture is going to begin with a 3D print. I'll be using the Sarayatech True Blue castable resin. I'll need to remove the supports and then look it over and see if it's ready for casting. It still goes through the basic washing and curing process of any print. Now this print is printed hollow. Because of that I added several vent holes. Because when you're printing you don't want the suction to disrupt the printing fluid. But this will also be important in how we get a good clean bronze cast. The only issue I'm seeing with the print is the hair. I think we'll be able to deal with that. I'll do my best to fix the hair but if I can't it'll just be a reminder that nobody's perfect. A.K.A. artistic license. I'll cut off the flops of hair that are sticking out and re-carve some hair grooves. It shouldn't be that hard to get it to look presentable. The supports leave little marks so I need to trim those or fill them and get those situated as well. Now when I did the Niteri and the Alien I cast them solid. However for the Arnold this is a hollow print. Because his chest and arms are so massive I don't want to cast this solid. Ideally when you're casting something you want it to go from thin to thick. With a big riser on top. So all the thin parts will cool and take their shape well. And the thick part can draw from that riser. If you cast it thick to thin the thin part will solidify first. Leaving this pool of molten metal to start cooling and the sculpture will end up wanting to tear itself apart. However being this is hollow it'll have a uniform thickness. So I won't have a massive differential in the metal. But to get this to cast hollow I have to put a core inside. So I'm going to repurpose these vent holes and get some investment inside. But I'm also going to need some chaplets to hold the core in place. I'm going to use the same investment that I used for the casting. I just mix up a little bit and then I'm going to use a syringe to inject it into there. This technique could definitely use some refining. Let me know how you make cores for a sculpture like this. Now before the casting plaster sets I'm going to embed my chaplets. That'll hold the core in place when it's free floating after the resin burns away. And for chaplets I'm trying something new. I'm using silicon bronze welding rod. We'll see if that works. The whole model is a mess so I need to clean off all that investment. And it's a pain I gotta tell ya. I need to trim back the investment at these vent holes. Otherwise I could end up with a hole in the bronze when it's all said and done. Then I'll pack the vent holes full of wax. Perfect. Now there's no holes. Now I need to prep a base and because the printer sometimes has flat edges that are warped I'm not sure why I need to use some sandpaper to get it flat again. And I also need to rebuild an edge with some wax. To attach Arnold to the base I'm going to use some liquid resin and just put it on the bottom of the seat. Set him on the base and then use a black light to cure the resin. And it will cure it more than just this but you don't need to see that. Now that it's all set it's time to start spruing it up. I added some sprue wax to the arms to help vent it and to help carry any impurities that might settle on the bottom. So if you've seen my other attempts on resin burnouts you've seen that I got a lot of flashing in the casting. I've since learned that resin expands a lot when you heat it up and burn it out. And I think that's what's causing it. So I got a new kind of investment. It's called Plastacast. And it's designed for burning out resins and plastics. Hopefully that works better. The ratios of this investment are pretty close to exactly the same as the other investments that I've used. I'm not sure what's different about this but I think it's more rigid so it doesn't crack as easily during the expansion of the resin. Next I'll put it in the kiln for burnout. Now this resin doesn't melt out like a plastic would. It burns out. But it leaves behind no ash. So the castings turn out really well. Next I have to get the metal melted. I've become pretty fond of vacuum casting so I'll do the same with this. We have a good seal and a good vacuum pull. Now I let it cool for a bit before quenching. It's important not to quench too hot but not too cold either. There's a balance. Too hot is very dangerous. Too cold is just an inconvenience. So right away I can tell there's a lot less flashing. So the investment worked. I'll clean it up and we'll see what we're really working with. Next I've got to cut the sprues off. I'm going to try really hard not to cut my fingers off as I do it. There is still some flashing on it but it's a lot more minor than the previous sculptures. Both the sandblasting and the wire wheeling help highlight different flaws that I might need to repair as I go forward. So cleaning it up reveals two things. One, it looks amazing. And two, it's not perfect. In the thigh I have some massive pitting. I don't know why. I'm guessing a piece of the investment flaked off. I don't really know. And in the ankle I also have a big hole all the way through. Some YouTubers would never show you that. But I do. I'm going to do my best to try to fix this by taking my welder, laying down a weld bead and then reshaping it. The ankle is going to be extremely difficult because I'm sure the welder is going to melt off the Achilles tendon. But if I get enough weld material in there I can use my Dremel to reshape it. Not ideal, but it's my only option. I'm using a silicon bronze welding rod and a lot of trial and error. I've never seen anybody explain how to do this. It's just kind of something you do and learn as you go. So the welding is done and I've got a big mass of metal there that I can use to sculpt back in the detail of the leg. Same with the ankle. With the ankle it's not a main focal point. I'm still going to try to grind in the actual detail of the ankle. I find another flaw right in the abdomen and there's three little spots here by the serratus muscles. Sometimes a welder is not the most finesseful way to fix these. So I may try another method but we'll come back to that. With the carbide bit I grind away the bulk of the excess bronze. Once I get close to the shape then I use finer tools and files to actually file in the detail. But I'll take care of some of that minor flashing that we had to begin with at this time as well. Filing is a lot slower process but it's a lot more precise. By the way, does anybody out there have a favourite name brand of a file? I always feel like my files should be cutting better than they are. Sculpting the metal is a slow tedious process but I really want to get the contours of the muscle groupings back in there. I think the quads are more or less back in condition now so we'll move on to the ankle. Next I'm going to try to fix that hole in the belly. This time instead of using my welder I'm going to hammer a piece of bronze in there and then file it down and shape it. This is how ancient people would have repaired flaws like this. They didn't have welders. But sometimes it's a real tricky process to get these little pieces of metal to set in the holes so I can actually hammer on them. Once it's hammered in and peened over then I move on to the files. And just like that the hole is completely gone. Now the holes by the serratus muscle were another story. The metal there was incredibly thin so when I went to hammer the piece into the holes it just smooshed in and went deep into the core. That's going to be a problem. I hammered a piece in the belly and that turned out pretty good. I tried to hammer a piece by the serratus muscles and it was so thin it dented in. This is really scary to me because it's so thin I can't hammer a piece in and if I try to weld it it's just going to melt and make a big hole. I don't know what to do. If it was just for me I'd call it good. You can't see it very well but I'd like to be able to sell it. But I can't sell it if you can look inside and see the investment core. That's not professional. So I have to patch it some way. The only way I can think to do that is with my TIG welder. I don't want to do it but I don't think there's any other way. So I'm going to take my TIG welder turn it way down and try to fill in these holes without melting a great big monstrosity. Then I'll have to take the Dremel and files and redo the detail work. And hopefully I can match what's there. Okay so it looks like he's got a big giant tumor there. It's not a tumor. It's not a tumor. At all. But at least the hole is filled in. So now I'm going to take my Dremel and recontour the muscle groups as best I can. Ouch that's hot. Sometimes when you're trying to fill in the hole the core or investment can become this glassy material and won't let the metal penetrate very deeply. And when I Dremeled it down I revealed another hole. So I'm going to have to fill it in again. I clipped off a piece of welding rod and shoved that in the hole but it wasn't enough. So I'm going to just have to take the filler rod and keep running it until it's full. When it's Dremeled down to about surface level then I can start contouring and adding the details of the muscles like the serratus or the abs or the ribs. I'd much rather be sculpting this in clay instead of metal but you get what you get. Considering I've never even carved anything out of wood I'm going to say that's decent. A little buffing really helps to highlight the good and bad of your work. I'm actually pretty happy with that. So we're getting close. I'm going to sandblast it again buff it all shiny look it over and see if it needs any more metal chasing or filing and then the finishing touches. Sandblasting is done. It's looking good. The buffing is done. I'll just hit the spots that I couldn't get with the big buffer with the little buffer and now it's time for the patina. The patina revealed another flaw that I hadn't noticed before. So it's almost done but when I took it out of the patina I looked into this gaping hole and could see the white investment in there again. Trying to figure out how I can do this. Now because there's investment behind there if I try to hammer another piece in I think it's just going to go into the investment just like it did in the ribs. So I'm trying to figure out another way I can fix this without using my welder. I think I have an idea. The only way I'll know if it works is to try it. Now around my grinder I have a lot of bronze dust but it's from different alloys so the color might not match. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take one of my sprues that I used and file that into a bunch of powder. Then I'm going to mix it with some epoxy glue, jam it in that hole and seal it off. That should allow me to get the same color as the statue and seal up that investment. It's not bad. Now I'll do a second patina and then give it some buffing for some highlights. Give it a quick coat of protect to clear and put some felt on the bottom as a final touch. And with that we're done. The ankle turned out pretty well. As did the ribs. The hole in the arm is pretty hard to see as well. I think it turned out fantastic. It's not 100% perfect I have yet to see a perfect cast but I think we fixed it up pretty dang good. I'll be auctioning this piece off so look for the auction link below. Let me know what you think. Thanks for watching. Bye bye.