Rodeo Joe by Richard Arfsten
Rodeo Joe is a carved foam evaporative pattern casting. It is a desk top piece. This is another of my early foam carvings. Here I was trying to deal with metal shrink in the casting process by using negative spaces. Shrink happens when you have a thick piece of metal and as it cools from the molten state it gets smaller, deforming the form. This is why most sculpture is cast about 1/8 " to 1/4" thick. Evaporative pattern casting or lost foam casting was a very new development when I started casting. My early abstract designs had tremendous amounts of shrink in each piece. My designs are made in solid chunks magnifying the shrink problem. It was several years of experimenting before I developed a technique to control it.
There are about 50 variables that need to be controlled to get a successful casting. It took me 5 years of 30 tries per year to identify and try to control these variables.
After more than 20 years of casting my success rate was about 70%. That is not acceptable to most sculptors or art foundries. That is why this process is rarely used in art casting.
There are about 50 variables that need to be controlled to get a successful casting. It took me 5 years of 30 tries per year to identify and try to control these variables.
After more than 20 years of casting my success rate was about 70%. That is not acceptable to most sculptors or art foundries. That is why this process is rarely used in art casting.