Here is the process I went through to create my first pewter study.
1.making a lost wax maquette of the desired sculpture. You will need to make a 'neck' underneath it so that it'll be acting as a funnel when your cast is ready. The neck must be secure to the bottom of the container and your sculpture and strong enough to hold it as plaster gets poured on it.
2. Making a container for the plaster to be poured into to create the mould for the pewter to be poured into later, making sure theres no leaks and that its secure.
3. Mixing the plaster. The powder should always be poured into the water. Mix using sweeping motions through the layers, making sure you don't introduce anymore air into it.
4. When the consistency of the plaster is smooth but thick enough to stick to your fingers (like double cream?) its ready to be poured. This must be done fairly quickly as the reaction has already started and will be hardening very quickly.
5. You must remove the air in the mixture before it sets. You shake the mould gently or tap the base quickly and gently onto a hard surface. Do this until there are no more bubbles rising to the surface.
6. Leave the mould to set completely. it'll take a few hours or maybe longer depending on the volume of your mould. I let mine set overnight out of lesson.
7. When its solid, its time to melt the wax out of the mould. take the plaster out of the container and put it into the kilm. The wax will be melting out of the bottom, leaving the hole where it was attached to the container, which will be the shape of your sculpture.
8. Once its completely melted and just the plaster is left it'll be ready to take out and leave to cool.
9. Its now ready to pour the pewter. You must heat the pewter until its completely liquid. Pour the liquid pewter into the 'funnel' that you made with the wax maquette. Do this quickly as it solidifies quickly but be careful as it may spit molten pewter and is very dangerous.
10. Once the pewter has set you'll have to start chipping off the plaster with a chisel. I left mine for 30 minutes before chipping away, just to make sure.
11. Chip away all the plaster and let the small stubborn bits soak off in warm water.
12. You may want to saw off the lumps of pewter where the 'funnels' were underneatehr your sculpture. Pewter is very soft so you can easily saw it off with a fine hand saw. Be sure to put it in a vice and secure the area that is being sawed off so that it wont move. Once you've sawed off the unwanted lumps you can keep them to be melted down and use again.
*This part is completely optional but it does help the overall appearance of your piece and its what I did and I feel it was worth the extra couple of hours.*
13. To reduse the matte effect the pewter has, use steel wool wrapped in cotton wool (to protect your hands) to buff it off. You may want to use a dremel tool to help enhance the sheen too.
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