lost-wax process

[ lawst-waks, lost- ]

noun

, Metallurgy.

1. a process of investment casting in which a refractory mold is built up around a pattern of wax and then baked so as to melt and drain off the wax.

Word History and Origins

Origin of lost-wax process¹

1930–35; translation of French cire perdue

Example Sentences

Benin artists excelled at brass casting, made with a lost-wax process.

From Los Angeles Times

Get up close and you’ll see that the bronze is abraded and unfinished, especially on Orpheus’s lyre and on the animal pelt draped over his chest — the result of an only partial mastery of the lost-wax process of metal casting, which involves forming a clay mold around a wax figure, heating it so the wax melts away, and then filling the cavity with liquid metal.

From New York Times

It was a shock to discover that the mistakes I hadn’t made would now never be made but would exist as negative shapes, cast in a kind of lost-wax process.

From The New Yorker

The process for creating the bronze bust, explained Palm, is called the lost-wax process.

From Washington Times

Eliscu decided to make the trophy by using a metal-casting method known as the lost-wax process.

From New York Times