Skip to Main Content
78/696

piece mold

piece mold

See figs. 9, 15, 18, 25, 26, 62, 74, 111, 116, 536, 556.

A type of composed of two or more individually formed, interlocking sections designed to circumvent undercuts and/or be disassembled without damage to the or to the mold sections. Most often refers to molds made of a rigid material such as plaster. Smaller piece mold sections are generally held together by a rigid outer mother mold. Starting in the nineteenth century, flexible piece molds (at first gelatin, later replaced by rubber, alginate, and silicone molds) were used instead of plaster, reducing the overall number of sections required to make a wax .

Note: Sometimes very large sculptures—both reliefs and in the round—need to be broken into smaller sections simply to avoid excessive suction or vacuum when removing the mold from the model. In the context of sculpture, the term may denote molds used to cast in the indirect lost-wax process. molds are also piece molds formed by compacting the sand in discrete portions around a rigid pattern. In the piece mold casting process (aka “section-mold process”), baked clay and loess—a fine-grained refractory soil found throughout northern China—are used to make piece molds into which bronze is poured (see Case Study 3).

Figure 9
Figure 15
Figure 18
Figure 25
Figure 26
Figure 62
Figure 74
Figure 111
Figure 116
Figure 536
Figure 556

Sources

Cultural Heritage: ;

Art and Craft Textbook:

General Dictionary: https:​/​/​www​.merriam​-webster​.com​/dictionary​/piece mold

Synonym

  • piece mold (alternate spelling)

Translations

French: moule à pièces

constitué d’au moins deux parties ou pièces assemblées pour faciliter le démoulage et souvent pour s’affranchir des problèmes de contre-dépouille.

Note: Pour la sculpture en bronze, un moule à pièces peut aussi bien désigner un moule à bon creux (pour la donc), un pour la , qu’un moule réfractaire pour la fonte à pièces (voir Case Study 3 et aussi , 196). Il arrive que les moules des très grands bronzes doivent être conçus en plusieurs sections non pas à cause de contre dépouilles, mais pour diminuer la trop grande adhérence du moule sur la surface du modèle et ainsi faciliter le démoulage (Andrew Lacey, pers. comm., July 2021).

Source

Cultural Heritage: , 563

German: Stückform

Alternate Translation

  • mehrteilige Form

Source

, 730

Italian: forma a tasselli

Tassello is a piece of a mold. In Treccani, the description refers uniquely to sand casting. Biringuccio describes forming a clay mold in pieces with locking parts he calls incastrature.

Sources

, under tassello [definition 2]; , fols. 80v–81; , 53–55

Alternate Translation

Chinese: 块范

Alternate Translation

  • 范块

    Source: , 80