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  May 9, 2010 The Rabbitry Plaque

This Plaque was a fun project.  I made it for my wife who has a few rabbits that she loves.  Any blue words are links that you can click on if interested.  

NOTE:  Metal casting is dangerous so remember to be safe in all you do and don't blame me if you hurt yourself!

Here is a picture of the paper I started with.  I glued this onto a piece of foam and cut it out with a utility knife...because I couldn't find my exacto knife...I hate it when I can't find my tools!!!

That's me!

Here it is as cut out.  I leave the paper on when I put the foam pattern into the sand...It makes a nice smooth surface and the paper turns to carbon.

Here is the pattern imbedded in my  K-Bond  sand.  The blue rectangle is the sprue and the large hole is a riser.  The little holes are lots of vent holes that I put in with a wire.  I used oil bonded sand because I have had problems getting a plaque to fill in the past if I just used loose sand.

Here is a video of the pour.... PLEASE NOTE!  I appologize for my attire...or I should say, lack of propper safety attire...but at least I had my gloves and face shield on!

Here is a video of the shake out.

Here it is after I ran over it with a wire brush

Here it is after I sand blasted it

OK Now the interesting part...I played around with some patinas on this plaque.  I wanted to put a greenish antique patina on it.  So I ordered cupric sulfate and ammonium chloride from  science company.com   for the antique green number 5 recipe shown on their site.  Before I got the chemicals, I looked up some household formulas on the net.  This first picture is one that I put table salt and vinegar on it.  It made it turn rather blue.

Then, I put it in a plastic bag with a cup of ammonia in it and it turned it this nice shade of blue...pretty, but not what I was going for.

I talked to Amy who runs the  Home Foundry and Casting group  at Yahoo and she suggested using gun bluing for a base before applying the patinas.  The next picture is that result.

I got the chemicals and tried to apply them with a torch and sprayer...It didn't work very well...It just turned black.  I think I got the metal too hot.  So I put the plaque in the oven and heated the patina on the stove.  Then I carried both outside to apply.  After two times, I had what I wanted.

Here it is with the lettering and border shined up and a laquer  (increlac)  applied.

But, My wife didn't like it!  Too green!  I was afraid of that... so I sand blasted most of the patina off and  re-laquered it.  I like it both ways.

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