I am very relieved that we now have Roy safe in bronze - not finished, but safe!!!.

Now the basic figure is cast and assembled it will be shipped back for chasing - this is the removal of seams and vents, and includes fine welding which is needed. The sculpture is then polished, and finally patination of the final highlighted colour.

The Whole casting and finishing process takes about 12 weeks in all, and most of this time is in the finishing. This needs care - It is very easy to over finish and grind and polish out all the energy in the texture of the piece.

Ken Hancock's original description of the toil, mud and sometimes blood was a great inspiration for the sculpture of Roy and I have tried to express this in the design and surface texture of the clay.

Each wax piece or panel has many wax tubes attached which run back to a sprue or pouring cup - this can be seen in the image above. At this stage everything is in wax - this is to allow the molten bronze to enter and the subsequent gas to escape.

The wax is then encased in a ceramic material about an inch thick and placed in a kiln and fired. During this process the the wax melts out leaving a hollow shell and the molten bronze is poured in to the gap left by the wax.

When cool the ceramic shell is smashed off leaving the bronze panel with its network of vents. These vents are ground off and the surface filled and made good. each panel is then welded back together around a steel support frame. The pictures here show the wax and the layers of ceramic shell being applied.

After a few years of hibernation, the statue mould was finally dusted down in December 2008 and packed off to the foundry for casting in bronze during a two week period at the end of January and the beginning of February. The photo's below are a first glimpse of Roy in bronze, as well as some of the steps taken to get there.

Sculptor Mike Talbot kindly talked us through the processes involved.

The casting is by the lost wax method this is an ancient technique used by the Romans!!! From the clay model a mould is made.This divides the sculpture up in to manageable parts; head legs arms torso etc., as you would have noticed the whole sculpture wax would be too big to get out of the building! I think you have images of this. The mould then goes to the foundry where a hollow wax cast is made by painting in thin coats of wax to build up a layer about a centimetre thick this will be the eventual thickness of the bronze.

Statue Gallery page 4

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