Frater Mike Major Continues His Stellar Work

In September, 1859, Abraham Lincoln was running for Congress. He delivered an anti-slavery speech at Dayton’s courthouse.

Now, Frater Mike Major has been commissioned to create a sculpture of Mr. Lincoln to commemorate that occasion.

Mike’s statue will stand eleven feet high and will be unveiled in Dayton on September 27th.

Mike has also been commissioned, with the help of Frater Bill McGraw, to sculpt statues of three prominent figures in aviation that hail from Miami County, Ohio.

These figures include:

• Clayton J. Bruckner – cofounder of Waco Aviation, an extremely well known and popular maker of civilian aircraft.
• Robert N. Hartzell – cofounder of Hartzell Walnut Propellor Company. Mr. Hartzell developed ground adjustable and constant speed propellors, presided over the end of the wooden propellor era, and patented the world’s first composite propellor.
• Dr. Nancy J. Currie – NASA Astronaut. Dr. Currie has been a flight simulation engineer and helped develop robotic hardware and operational procedures for the space shuttle and international space station. She is a veteran of four shuttle missions and accrued over 1,000 hours in space.

Mike says creating a bronze statue is a “long, drawn out process, but worth it”.

Basically he starts with an underlayment of styrofoam sprayed with shellac. Clay is then cut into slabs and applied to the foam. The shellac allows the clay to stick. Details for the final statue can then be molded into the clay.

The clay sculpture is then taken to a foundry. Several coats of latex are applied with a reinforced plaster applied over that. The mold is then opened and cleaned. Molten wax is brushed on the inside of the latex until a desired thickness is attained. The mold is closed and the seams are sealed to create a hollow replica. Cut into pieces, each piece is then dipped into ceramic and the was melted out. Molten bronze is then poured into the cavity.

After the pieces cool they are welded back together and the seams ground down so that they do not appear. An acid wash is applied to create a protective patina.

Samples of Mike's work can be viewed at http://www.mikemajor.com.

Article submitted by Gary Hermann (Alpha-Beta, Ohio)