Metal Casting - Ceramic shell, sand molding, and traditional investment processes are regularly taught for the casting of aluminum, bronze and iron. The studio facilities in metals at Texas Tech are excellent. The undergraduate classroom includes twenty individual workstations each equipped with natural gas torches. Bronze casting is also taught, based on demand. The studio facility is approximately 5000 sq.
Some graduate space is also available.
There is also a large metal forging facility with a trip happer for pounding metal which is located in a separate building and also serves as a faculty studio. There is an overhead lift for managing large heavy sculpture and equipment. Surrounding the Foundry are outdoor concrete pads and an adjacent grass and wooded area which provide ample space for outside work and the display of large sculptures. As a result of the pledge, the foundry has been named the Irwin Belk Foundry. The foundry, in the Jenkins Fine Arts Center, consists of a foundry room, work spaces, a moldmaking room and a kiln yard where artists can cast piece molds, flexible molds, waste molds and sand molds in a range of materials.