‘Our technicians smash it with a hammer!’ ...Middle East

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Since the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929, only one Hollywood icon has made the guest list every single year. He’s statuesque, gleams ever gold — and stands at 13 ½ inches high and weighs 8 ½ pounds. His official name, the Academy Award of Merit, fell into disuse decades ago, replaced simply by Oscar.

The statuette is legendary: an Art Deco knight, hands clasped around the hilt of his sword, stood atop a five-spoked reel of film, with each spoke representing a branch of the original Academy – acting, writing, directing, producing and technical roles.

Almost a century after Cedric Gibbons – art director on many famous films including The Wizard of Oz and Singin’ in the Rain – designed the award in 1928, Jake Joyce, a second-generation metalworker, runs UAP, the New York foundry where every modern Oscar is made. “They’re heavier than you’d expect,” says Joyce, “because they’re cast in solid bronze. There are 110 people in our workshop and an Oscar will probably pass through at least half of the hands here.”

Throughout the 20th Century, Oscars were created using everything from britannia, a pewter-like alloy, to painted plaster during the Second World War when there was a metal shortage. However, the statues have been cast in their original metal, bronze, since 2016. That’s when the team at UAP was approached by Academy officials, who wanted a return to a more traditional casting process and design.

“They supplied us with both an original George Stanley-sculpted Oscar from 1929 and a more modern version,” says Joyce. “We digitally scanned both and worked with the Academy to select attributes from each that worked. We slightly adjusted the model, but just minor stylistic tweaks – like the detailing of the film reel the statue stands on.”

The foundry, of which Joyce is the general manager, employs the lost wax process, a 6,000-year-old method of replicating a model in a more permanent material. Using a series of mouldings and castings, it’s a time-intensive process that begins by 3D-printing a high-resolution master copy of the Oscar that’s then used to create a rubber production mould.

“That’s the first mould,” explains Joyce. “We use that to cast a wax copy of the Oscar. The team then removes any imperfections by hand, and we invest the wax copy into a ceramic shell.” That process involves dipping the wax copy into a liquid ceramic mixture several times to create a shell that is durable enough for hot metal to be poured into, and after that stage it’s ready for casting.

UAP sources its bronze from several trusted suppliers. “The main source of recycled copper, like recycled power lines and wires,” says Joyce. Before casting, the team treats the molten metal with various inert gases to remove any hydrogen or oxygen that may be dissolved in the bronze. This ensures a cleaner, smoother casting.

“We melt the bronze in an induction furnace at 2000°F, and heat the ceramic shell in a kiln at 1500°F,” explains Joyce. “Then the metal is poured into the shell from a crucible. It’s left to cool overnight, before our technicians take the mould we’ve spent weeks making and smash it off with a hammer!”

This reveals the raw casting, which is passed to the foundry’s finishing department. Here, craftspeople file down any join marks or imperfections on the Oscar and give it a thorough polish.

“Once the Oscar is polished,” says Joyce, “it’s copper-plated, then nickel-plated – polishing and buffing between every plating – before it’s finally given it a beautiful gold-plating. Gold doesn’t oxidise, so that means an Oscar requires no maintenance.”

The bronze surface of the statue base does oxidise, however, which would results in a black patina appearing on the surface. To prevent that they are protected with a wax coating and sealed at the bottom with an aluminium disc. Then the Oscar statue is drilled, tapped and bolted on to the base. This is followed by another stringent round of quality control checks before each statue is slipped into a custom-stitched protective cloth bag, nestled into a foam insert and boxed up.

“This is the original way that the Oscars were made,” says Joyce of the meticulous process. “And then, over time, they moved toward using a lower-quality metal, more like trophy production. We’re so happy that it’s back to its original. We’re incredibly proud of making the Oscars, and it never gets old watching amazing, talented people receiving these iconic awards.”

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