The flame reached the top of the furnace and began to whirl in a tight spiral. It plunged inside, roaring and spinning at high speed. The floor shook. "Jesus," George said.
"It's like a Goddamn bomb," Oliver said.
George put an ingot of bronze into a carbon crucible and gripped the edge of the crucible with long tongs. He lowered the crucible to the bottom of the furnace. "Put the top on," he said. Oliver lifted and pushed the top over the furnace. The roaring became muffled, contained. It felt safer. "Nice going, about the air," George said. "I thought we were going to burn the place down."
"Physics," Oliver said. George looked down through the hole in the top.
"Nothing yet." He stood back. A few minutes later the ingot began to slide toward the bottom of the crucible. "There she goes," George said. "It's working." He opened the door of the kiln, and, using a different set of tongs, extracted the flask. He set the flask, glowing cherry red, upside down in a flat pan of sand. He shut off the gas and unplugged the blower. "The top," he said, handing Oliver a pair of heavy gloves and pointing. Oliver worked the top over one edge of the drum, tipped it down, and rolled it onto three bricks.
George reached into the furnace with the long tongs. He lifted the crucible from the furnace and walked with careful steps to the flask. Holding the lip of the crucible over the flask, he tipped his body to one side. The bronze poured like golden syrup into the hole where the wax had been, quickly filling the mold.
George lowered the crucible back into the furnace. After the roaring, it seemed unusually silent. "Intense," Oliver said. "Now what?" George picked up the hot flask with the second pair of tongs and dropped it into a bucket of water. There was a burst of sizzling and bubbling, and it was quiet again.
"The temperature shock weirds out the investment. It changes state—to a softer stuff that we can get off the bronze." George poured the water into his bathtub and refilled the bucket with cold water. "Still hot," he said.
They drank wine while the flask cooled. When George could hold the flask, he pushed the investment out of the cylinder and chipped at it with a screwdriver. A hip appeared. "The Flying Lady," Oliver said.
"Damn!" George said, chipping and prying. Gobs of oatmeal colored investment fell away. "Not bad!" George held up the Lady and the heart on their bronze tree. "We cut them off and