Repairing a metal statue

My elderly neighbours had a metal statue that they'd had since they were young. He now has dementia and recently had a fall and knocked over the statue. This caused him some distress. They brought it over and asked if I could try to repair it. On first sight it seemed impossible. He had tried to repair it himself and had gone a bit wild with a grinder I think. There was glue everywhere and a lot of the metal was missing. #repair #crafts #benicetoeachother

But I wanted to try to help so I gathered some materials. Gluing it back together wasn't an option and the metal can't be soldered. So I decided to make a kind of internal skeleton from wood and copper and then pack it with air-drying clay.

I started with the head. I used a cork insert to reduce the amount of clay needed and to give myself a chance to adjust the copper neck later if I needed.

Once I had the wooden skeleton in place I started to build up the layers of clay. It was slow going as each layer took a day to fully cure. The remaining hole inside the body is where I am going to sink the copper rods that will attach the head.

I drilled a couple of holes and added a copper stitch behind the arm. The copper wire connected to the internal wooden spine.

I attached the forearm by fixing copper rod into the upper arm and then into the forearm. I packed it with more clay and built up the missing elbow joint using the same stuff.

You can see how much metal was missing.

After several days of drying I am finished with this stage.

Now I needed to paint the clay using acryllc paint to try to match it to the colour of the metal.

Here it is after a couple of coats. I also covered over the areas where my neighbour had ground bits away trying to fix it.

Handsome.

Considering I nearly gave up on this project before I even started I am pleased at the result. More importantly he is back with his owners now and they are thrilled to have him back in one piece. #repair #crafts #benicetoeachother