Most recently at Andre’s Institute I assisted Director, John Weidman by preparing the scratch molds used at this year’s event. John threw together several wooden frames. We used a mixture of resin bond and play sand to create over 70 scratch blocks for the participants to use.

Here are images of some of the process:

 

Each block is etched by a participant with the symbol / imagery of their choice. Once they’re happy with their work, a graphite wash is applied. Iron is melted and poured into each mold. The iron castings are knocked out of the sand molds, cooled in a water tank and then cleaned of any flashing or burrs. The end result is art in the form of a cast iron tile.

This has become a biannual event at AIA. If you haven’t made it up yet, there’ll be another one in the spring.

Check out: http://andresinstitute.org/ for more information.

02 Dec This entry was published on December 2, 2014 at 8:01 pm and is filed under blog. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.