The historical society wanted a replacement door pull for a building that outlived its own foundry. Lostwax cast it from photographs and one broken original — the weight, the patina, the whole grammar of the thing. Two committees have since approved it and neither believed it was new.
Our father’s memorial plaque is the reason I can read his handwriting again. They cast his signature off a letter, chased it by hand, and the bronze sits in the garden gaining the exact green it is supposed to gain. The pour day invitation was the most extraordinary thing I have been asked to attend.
As an architect I specify machine-cut bronze all day and it arrives dead. This shop is the other thing: a balustrade section with a hand-chased surface that throws light like water. The building won an award and the metal is half of why.
What the shop pours
The casting trades
Services
Four doors into the foundry
01
Commemorative plaques & markers — from $1,850
Cast silicon bronze to your text and drawings — signatures, seals, maps — with hand-chased letterforms and a patina chosen for the site it will age in. Dedication-ready mounting, foundry-marked on the reverse, and a wax copy you keep before the burnout takes it.
02
Architectural castings & hardware — from $640/pattern
Door pulls, push plates, balustrade fittings and the ornament a century building lost a piece of. Patterns made from photographs, originals or the surviving half of a pair — cast to match weight and finish, chased to match age.
03
Monument & sculpture casting — quoted per commission
The sculptor’s route: moulds taken from your original, waxes chased under your eye, and the pour scheduled on a day you can stand at the crucible. Full service from armature advice to the final hot patina, in bronze to your alloy specification.
04
Restoration & recasting — from $2,200
Broken monuments, damaged plaques, missing hardware: the piece moulded, the missing cast, the whole reintegrated and patinated to match its own surviving surfaces. Repairs in metal, never in filler — the next restorer inherits bronze, not epoxy.
Recent casts, both crucibles
The pour book
Six castings from the last two seasons, from a door pull to a full monument — each photographed after the chase and again after the patina had a season to settle. Bronze does not finish; it begins.
Week 1
The model
Wax carved, printed, or moulded from your original — whichever the piece needs — with the details chased by hand because moulds flatter nothing. You approve the wax in person or by courier before anything is invested.
Weeks 2–3
The investment & burnout
The wax is dipped in ceramic slurry nine times, stuccoed and dried, then burned out over two days until the shell is empty and the pattern’s ghost is exact — the “lost” in lost-wax is literal, and it is why every casting is one of one.
Pour day
The pour
Silicon bronze at 1,900 degrees, degassed and poured in one continuous moment while the shell is hot. Clients are invited, at distance, with the foundry’s own pour crew on the crane. It is over in ninety seconds and it is not forgettable.
Weeks 4–5
Chase & patina
The casting cut from its shell, sprues removed, surfaces chased by hand, and the patina built with heat and chemicals to the green, brown or honey the site asks for — then waxed, signed and dated on the reverse.
Delivery
The installation drawings
Mounting templates, anchor schedules and the care sheet for the finish you chose — including the honest instruction for living bronze: touch it, and let it darken where the hands fall.
Slow is the process, not the waiting
A casting takes six to eight weeks because each stage is a physical fact: wax must yield, ceramic must dry, bronze must flow once. Nothing in the sequence can be hurried without being cheapened — the calendar is the recipe, and the pour day is worth the whole wait.
Every other shop offered to cut it from plate and call it cast. Lostwax burned out a two-day shell and poured it in ninety seconds, and when I held both samples the difference was the difference between a photograph and a person. The bronze remembers being liquid. You can feel it.
Pour days run monthly, crucible one and two — commission by the fifteenth to hold a wax approval in the same cycle · (555) 715-3306 · casts@lostwaxfoundry.example
Asked at every wax approval
Lost-wax or sand casting — what is the difference I am paying for?
Sand casting moulds a pattern in packed sand: economical, coarser, and every surface carries the sand’s texture. Lost-wax invests a wax original in ceramic that captures fingerprint-level detail, burns the wax out, and pours into the void — finer surfaces, undercut ornament, and a casting that reproduces the model rather than approximating it. For hardware and plaques the difference reads at arm’s length; for sculpture it is the whole craft.
What bronze do you pour, and does it matter?
Silicon bronze as the house standard — the modern casting alloy: pours beautifully, patinas honestly, and stands outdoors without the dezincification that attacks brassier alloys. Statuary bronze and everdur are poured to specification for restoration work where matching the original alloy is part of the brief.
How do I choose a patina?
With a tile set in the garden, on the actual site, over a week. Bronze does not have a finish colour; it has a direction of travel, and the patina chemicals set the itinerary — traditional green, statuary brown, or the honey of hand-waxed bare metal. We make the samples, the site makes the decision.
Can you cast from an original we own?
Yes — the mould is taken in our shop with the original in your sight, rubber and plaster against the surface, and the original returned before the wax is chased. The mould remains yours, and the casting is cast from a wax pulled from it — nothing touches the original but the mould, and the mould touches it once.
Bring the words, the photograph or the broken piece.
A plaque starts with your text; a restoration starts with the fragment; a sculpture starts with a conversation. The wax approval and the fixed quote follow inside two weeks — and the pour day invitation follows the wax.
Lostwax Foundry Co. · Est. 1996, two crucibles, one cupola · casts@lostwaxfoundry.example · 1 Crucible Lane, the Old Crucible