< FIXTURES & FITTINGS
JOINING & CUTTING
Unlike designs WROUGHT from mill supplied sheets and sections, a sculpture cast is created entirely within a refractory mould. This means that a cast needs little (if any) further manipulation – bending, rolling, forging etc, to complete the sculpture. Despite this, most castings undergo some form of cutting or welding process, for example pin hole filling and drilling for threading.
As well as producing cast designs and sculptures, founders may occasionally fabricate elements of an artwork from wrought materials. The function of these fabricated elements may be limited to design features only, or they might offer structural support (metal plinths, bases, internal armatures and so on). Whilst few foundries possess the tooling and machine facilities of a dedicated fabrication shop, many larger founders offer some form of basic fabrication service, usually adequate for producing the kinds of straightforward fabrications mentioned above.
Modern art foundries invaribly use full fusion techniques (WELDING), as well as BRAZING and SOLDERING processes for joining cast elements [ref]. To a lesser extent bolts, self tapping screws and rivets of varying types are used to create so called DRY JOINTS. Most commonly, dry joints are used for the fixing of an internal armature support to the walls of a cast. Cast iron designs will often be bolted in preference to welding; in this case, the mechanical joint minimises the potential for a fracture develop across the cast through welding heat stress. Other techniques such as glued or ‘self secured’ joining (shrink fitted or 'panned’ down for example), are not commonly found in cast artworks, these joining techniques are only used in exceptional circumstances.
The following pages introduce some of the processes and techniques used in art foundries and other design metal workshops to join and cut a variety of materials.
WELDING, BRAZING & THERMAL CUTTING INTRODUCTION >
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NOTE: The word WROUGHT is used here as a general reference to any readily available stock metal item, including plate, tube, bar, angle and so on. |
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