Too cheap to buy a furnace to melt your own?
Well, sports fans, there's hope for you yet. It's very possible to make a realistic-looking bronze (well, as realistic-looking as a bronze statue will get...) using bronze powder and resin.
The technique is fairly simple. Use a resin such as Smooth-Cast 325, a 1:1 by volume urethane. After you've portioned out the 1 and the 1 of the resin (A and B), then portion out another 1 of bronze powder. Mix A and B together, then blend in the powder and pour or brush the mix onto the surface of your properly prepared mold.
You might need 2 coats. It depends on how thick you want the surface to be, and whether you missed any spots on the first coat.
Once you've got that part done, you can cast a foam material (Foam It 5 or Foam It 10) to fill in the rest of the casting. The result?
Yep. Pretty Cool.
Make it look more like the real thing by buffing the surface of the casting with a buffing wheel and polishing compound. Highlights can be added with black shoe polish.
Low tech, yet effective! |
