A Ball State spam email actually convinced me to do something. I got an email about a weekend-long iron-casting class coming to campus. I'm taking a metals class next semester and I wanted to get some practice in with a new material, so I signed up for an Iron Casting Workshop through David Owsley's Museum of Art.
We were given sand blocks to carve into and a nail wrapped in duct tape. I used the nail and a butter knife to carve a snake into my block.
On Sunday, we met at the museum where they had set up equipment to heat the iron and tables where we could prepare our blocks.
Once our blocks were done we painted them with a black liquid that had to be burned off so the molten iron didn't cool with sand in it.
Once the blocks were ready, we drilled holes into them that the metal could be poured through to fill the molds.
With that ready, we put a bead of glue around the edge and put the blocks together, tying them shut with wire.
The instructor took it from there, pouring molten iron in our molds. He took our molds back to his studio to cool and to sand down the rough parts. He said they'd be ready for us to pick up in a week or two.
Here's my finished snake!
Here's my finished snake!