Miku is now in bronze.

I have completed the casting and assembly of Miku. She is not yet polished or completely finished but I am pleased to have her all put together. Soldering or brazing heavy pieces of metal is always a challenge. The metal needs to get red hot; hot enough for the solder to flow, yet not too hot so that previously assembled pieces come apart or small parts melt.

I cast Miku in two large pieces that were her upper and lower body. Sometimes it is a bit difficult to fit a piece into a casting flask. Miku’s lower body had to be fitted to provide additional clearance between her knees and the flask.

I cast Miku using the ancient bronze alloy. The casting was successful. It wasn’t too difficult to solder her together, although it did take the typical two soldering attempts to insure that the joint is filled around the complete piece.

The next step is to clean Miku and examine her for casting glitches. You can see one on her shoulder in the picture below. These are usually filed out or otherwise repaired. In general, the casting was very good. The ancient bronze alloy that I used has a nice red color to the metal when polished.

The next step is to assemble her hair. It was prudent to put pins in her pigtails because of their size. Once her hair was together it would be soldered to Miku’s head and without pins it would all fall apart.

I actually had some problems soldering Miku’s hair to her head. I had cut one of the pigtail pins a little short so the pigtail detached when soldering her hair to her head. I had to undo the first solder attempt and try again. I tried to remove the pin and replace it but I was unable to get the pin out. Instead, while doing this I melted the pigtail holder that has been originally cast as part of her pigtail. Stuff happens. I now have a repair job waiting to do.

The pictures below show the parts before I started and the finished soldered Miku. They don’t show the trials to get to the final assembly. I still have to repair her melted pigtail holders.

Miku by herself now weight 690 grams. Next comes her toy whale.