it was some time ago that I completed my carved elephant. It was always designed to stand on a glass platform, but the cost of running the glass kiln for a casting run has put me off.
That all changed when we had 25 solar panels installed late last year. They are currently generating around 20kW a day and so a 5 day kiln run using about 35kW doesn’t seem so bad.
I used the lost wax principle. This entailed first carving the base in wax. It was then used to create a mould from plaster and silica, reinforced with wire mesh. The mould is then inverted in the Aga to melt the wax out, leaving a plaster mould ready for the glass.
The glass comes in chunks and is simply placed in the mould at the start of the 5 day cycle, most of which is a very gradual cooling down annealing process to ensure the finished base doesn’t crack.
A few finishing touches and the elephant was glued to the base and stands proud as it was always designed to do: