Residents of town where Lucille Ball was raised are angry about ugly statue

[jmowreader]

67. They don't need to melt the whole thing down

I know a sculptor named Terry Lee (who made six of these statues...

)

Terry explained to me how bronze statues are made.

First, build a wire armature that roughly conforms to the shape of the statue. Then cover it with modeling wax and form what you think is the final design of the statue.

Next comes the hard part: Everyone who's got even a little say in the statue has to approve it. (The people who approved the Lucy Ball statue seem to have been hitting on the Vitameatavegamin a bit too hard, but that's an issue for another time.) Figure on this taking two to three months and you having to re-carve a LOT of your statue, especially the face.

Eventually everyone will be happy with your statue. You then crate it, put the crate and another 100 pounds of modeling wax in a truck, and drive the truck to the foundry. When you get it to the foundry, you peel off the crate and patch any damage the statue may have suffered in transit. You have to take photos of the statue at the foundry and send them to its patrons for a very last approval, or the patrons may go to the foundry and check it again.

Then comes the fun part: the foundry cuts your statue into many pieces. (His latest piece is a construction worker, which was cut into fifty pieces.) Each one is made into a mold, the molds are all cast in bronze, and then the pieces are welded together to return the statue to its original form. Then it's aged and varnished before shipping to the customer.

What they should do with this piece is to remove it from view, make a new head that looks like Lucy, change the heads and refinish the statue. Cheaper than a whole new statue and much more effective.