Bronze Resin Sculpture Care & Repair

How to care for your bronze resin sculpture

If kept indoors your sculpture will require no particular care other than an occasional dusting. We use a three-inch paint brush which is able to clear out any crevices harbouring dust, but care must be taken not to strike any fragile parts of the sculpture with the handle of the brush. You can, of course, use a duster if you prefer, but this is inclined to leave cotton threads sticking to the rougher parts of the texture.

If kept outdoors your sculpture will require a little more attention. It is impervious to water so do not be afraid to hose it down if it becomes grubby. If you notice some small rusty spots soon after placing it outside, these are not the piece itself rusting (bronze does not rust) but will be remnants of the steel wool used when finishing the piece. Flick these off with a stiff brush or hose them away.

The sculpture is finished with a wax coat to add depth to the colour and this will wear away when exposed to the weather for a couple of years. Most people are happy with this “weathered” look, but if you are not, you can re-apply a thin coat of wax to bring it back to its original state. Almost any wax will do as long as it is not a spray-on type containing dissolving agents which would smear any remaining wax on the sculpture. Use any paste wax with a dark base - we use Liberon Dark Patinating Wax, (eg. Georgian Mahogany) but a dark oak furniture polish also works well.

Apply with a brush or rag, leave to harden and then polish.
If your sculpture has been left outside for many years without attention and become dull you can bring back the shine by rubbing with fine steel wool. Polish those areas where you would expect the sculpture to have been patted by human hands if it were on display to the public, nose, ears, etc. until you have restored the bronze look. Do not polish every part of the sculpture and do not polish too vigorously as an overall highly shiny surface will look very unnatural. Finish with wax as above.

Thank you for your order. We hope you enjoy your Suzie Marsh sculpture for many years to come.

Repairs to Cold Cast Resin Sculpture.

Here’s how to make repairs to bronze resin

If you have a clean break which fits together without any missing pieces

First drill lots of holes in the two faces of the break so that each face looks “honey-combed”. Apply Araldite to each face making sure that you force it into the holes you have drilled. Squeeze broken parts together and remove any Araldite which has migrated to the surface with a knife blade. Hold join together with gaffer tape, string, elastic bands or similar. Allow to set overnight. Where any of the drilled holes coincide you will have a little “rod” of Araldite to hold the join together. Very effective this – have not known any repair to come apart again later. If join is visible rub over with any black wax and allow it to harden before wiping over with a rag.

If you have a bad break with missing “chips”

1. Drill broken faces as above.

. Mix equal amounts of Araldite (which is a similar composition to the resin) together with a lolly stick or similar.

3. Tip out a small mound of talc or some other inert filler, like flour.

4. Push Araldite into the mound of talc and fold over and over so that the talc is absorbed into it. Continue doing this (and adding more talc as necessary) until you have a ball of “putty” which you can touch without it sticking to your fingers. This will take more talc than you expect!

5. Squeeze putty onto the opposing faces of the break, making sure it gets into the holes you have drilled and squeeze the faces together. Remove surplus with knife or stick as it will be much more difficult to remove when set. Whatever you don’t get off will have to be cut away later with a sharp knife. Hold join with tape or similar.

6. The same “putty” is also useful to fill in any little chips you might have to repair.

7. Touch up with a little bronze paint (or you can use black gloss enamel (but you will need to paint this on and then wipe off as much as you need to match the colour of the sculpture).

8. To finish you can use Leberron black or mahogany wax.

TIP: use “slow” (precision) Araldite rather than “rapid”. This allows you longer working time before going off and makes a stronger join.