Tracing the Making Method of Ancient Large Bronze Statues

What are the production processes of large bronze statues? The production process of bronze statues generally includes several important processes such as metal smelting, forging, engraving, gold plating, polishing, and painting. It can be said that the production process of bronze sculpture is complex and very sophisticated. There are three main methods of making bronze statues, and different methods have different processes. The so-called bronze statue refers to a statue or portrait cast in copper, and the raw material is of course copper. The main methods of making large bronze statues are the lost wax method and the casting method, so now let's introduce the ancient knowledge about the "large bronze statue making process.

Before talking about the process of making a bronze statue, let's talk about the method of making a large bronze statue.:as follows

1.lost wax method:Make a mold with wax and apply molding material to form a whole mold.

2.mold method:Widely used. Large bronze carvings are generally cast in a single piece and then connected into a whole.

3.melting copper method:Using the mold-free controllable casting process, the "mold-free" makes the copper liquid naturally smooth and unformed; the "controllability" allows the molten copper to melt under the control of the artist.

The Making Process of Ancient Large Bronze Statues:The casting methods of bronze sculpture include wax mold casting, resin sand casting, forged copper manufacturing, integral casting, split casting and other casting technologies.

1.Casting Process of Clay Copper Statues:Before the Shang Dynasty, the casting process of large bronze statues was clay casting, that is, one-time casting. The method is divided into alloying, casting and molding three aspects.

(1)The alloy is based on the needs of the made bronze objects, copper and tin according to a certain proportion, put into a copper melting furnace and heat melted into a bronze solution, can be used for casting. Different bronzes use different proportions of alloys.

 (2)Casting:Inject the copper liquid into the mold from the gate, cool the copper liquid, take out the inner and outer molds, and polish and trim them.

(3)Making a model is to make a glass steel model. Making a large bronze mold is to use clay to make a model the same size as the bronze to be cast. The ornamentation and inscription should be engraved on it at the same time, and then dried and baked hard. Then, the outer mold is made, mixed with water, spun yarn, soil and chopped plant straw into mud, and smeared on the clay mold. After the clay is half dry, cut it into several pieces with a knife, then dry it in the shade and bake it hard to become an outer mold. The inner fan is made of clay according to the shape of the clay mold minus the thickness of the wall. If there is an inscription on the inner wall, the inscription should also be engraved on the surface of the inner fan. After baking in the shade, assemble the inner fan and the outer fan together, tie them with a rope, and wrap them with thick mud, leaving a gate for casting molten copper and a channel for exhausting air in the fan. At this time, the space between the inner fan and the outer fan is the shape of the bronze carving to be cast.

2.The process of decorative casting in the Shang Dynasty refers to the separate casting of bronze engraving body and accessories, and the casting method is divided into the first casting method and the second casting method.

3.After the lost wax method and the welding method, two new casting processes for large copper statues appeared.:Lost wax method and welding method. The lost wax method, also known as the investment method, first makes a model of a wax bronze sculpture, then dip a special mud to become a clay mold, dry and bake, melt the wax and flow out to become a mold, and then cast bronze liquid. For example, the bronze statue plate unearthed from the tomb of Zenghou Yi in Suixian County, Hubei Province, and the bronze statue Guban unearthed from the Temple of Xiaxia in Xichuan County, Henan Province. There are exquisite shapes and numerous ornamentation, it is breathtaking. The welding technique that became popular during the Spring and Autumn Period was developed from the split casting method, that is, the various parts of the bronze sculpture can be cast separately and then welded. Generally, there are brazing, soldering, lead-tin alloy and other solders.