Arizona silver belt., 1895-01-12
BIG BRONZE STATUES.
Some of the Complications En-
 countered in Casting Them.
Where Some of the Largest American Figures In This Metal Are Located The Process of ghesr Con
 etruction.


 Few have any idea of the difficulty of casting a large bronze statue. The popular idea Is that molten bronze is poured into a mold, and then, when the metal has cooled, the mold is knocked off and the statue is complete 4 How much more elaborate is the proc ess says the New York World, may be gathered from the following descrip- tion of the castingof a large bronze statue in one piece: After the plaster model has been obtained from the ar tist it is laid upon frame and built up all over with reddish sand, which Is peculiarly fitted for the purpose be. cause of it's cohesiveness when worked and of its stony hardness when dry. It is imported from France, the best com ing from Fontenoy-aux-Rose about sixteen miles from Paris.
 This building-up process is not So easy as it sounds, for the sanG has to be applied in little chunks, varying in size but all fitting snugly together, so Chat they can be taken apart when the im- pression is complete and the mold is dry.
 In an elaborate casting there will be from fifteen hundred to two thousand of these pieces, all of which must be accurately adjusted, or the casting will be imperfect. The most noticeable feature in bronze foundry is the num- Der of worlSmep employed in cutting up little chunks of the sand and care fully and tenderly fitting them around the plaster model. These workmen, by the way, are imported along with the sand, the majority of them being French
 The blocks of sand being dry, they are carefully taken off the cast one by one, and as carefully reftted. This is the mold 1t is then filled with clay, and when the clay is dry the little blocks forming the mold are again un- fitted, and a fac-simile of the plaster cast is obtained Then comes the most delicate part of the work The clay model has to be reduced by scraping un- til it is an exact but slightly smaller copy of the plaster model, for 9 quar- ter ot an inch has to be taken of its entire surface, and the difficulty of do- ing this can be imagined, especially when the subject is at all ornate As stunning the reduction of the clay core, " as it is technically termed, to be sati8- factory, the core is introduced into the mold, which has again b2en put to- Eether, and there is naturally q space of quarter of an inch between the ex- terior of the core and the interior of the mold. The core Is stayed with iron rods so that it remains rigid in the center of the mold, and the glowing molten bronze is poured in from the top and completely fills up the space between the core and the mold; after it has cooled the mold is removed and the clay interior extracted, and the statue is revealed, somewhat rough, it is true, but very nearly as il will ap- pear before the public.
 The Astor doors of Trinity church took three years to complete, a good contrast to which may be found. as re- gards time of execution, in the Wash ington statue in front of the subtreas- ury on Wall street, which was com pleted in six weeks and two days. Speaking of the Washington statue, every one has nc ticed the bright color, or 'patina, as it is called, of the legs of the Father of His Country, while the rest of the body is as grimy us all the other bronze statues in New York city, This is due to the rubbing of the shoulders of street boys and loafers. The founders of the statue say they would make them handsome present if they would rub the rest of the great mans body, for 'patina" acquired in this way Is superior to any that can be given artifcially.
 The statue that gave the most trouble to the founders, and at the same time is one of the most artistic and beauti- ful specimens of bronze casting in the country, is Mir, J. Q. 4. Wards statue of President Garfield, in Washington. The nude figures around the statue are responsible for the difficulty of casting
 The alloy commonly used for statue casting consists of ninety parts copper, seven tin and three zine; that used by the ancient Greeks being eighty cop per and twenty tin. At the time of Pausanias they were the first to do any bronze casting; previously articles of ornament were made by riveting sheets of bronze together in the same way that the statue of Liberty is construct cd