The outer mould can be made from plaster, but can also be made of fiberglass or other materials. Inner moulds are usually made of latex, polyurethane rubber or silicone, which is supported by the outer mould. The rigid outer moulds contain the softer inner mould, which is the exact negative of the original model. A mould is made of the original model or sculpture. Wax and oil-based clay are often preferred because these materials retain their softness. An artist or mould-maker creates an original model from wax, clay, or another material. These are the steps for the indirect process (the direct method starts at step 7): Ĭasts can be made of the wax model itself, the direct method, or of a wax copy of a model that need not be of wax, the indirect method.

(In modern industrial use, the process is called investment casting.) Variations of the process include: 'lost mould', which recognizes that materials other than wax can be used (such as tallow, resin, tar, and textile) and 'waste wax process' (or 'waste mould casting'), because the mould is destroyed to remove the cast item. The steps used in casting small bronze sculptures are fairly standardized, though the process today varies from foundry to foundry. Lost-wax casting was widespread in Europe until the 18th century, when a piece-moulding process came to predominate. 3700 BC, making them more than 5,700 years old. Conservative estimates of age from carbon-14 dating date the items to c. and the objects discovered in the Cave of the Treasure ( Nahal Mishmar) hoard in southern Palestine (region), which belong to the Chalcolithic period (4500–3500 BC). Other examples from somewhat later periods are from Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C. The oldest known example of this technique is a 6,000-year old amulet from the Indus Valley Civilization. Intricate works can be achieved by this method.

Lost-wax casting (also called ' investment casting', 'precision casting', or cire perdue which has been adopted into English from the French, pronounced ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass or bronze) is cast from an original sculpture. On the left is an example of a rubber mould, often used in the lost-wax process, and on the right is the finished bronze sculpture.

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