A life-sized sculpture honouring the 10th Australian Light Horse Regiment produced at Billmans Foundry in Castlemaine, has been shipped to Stirling Square in Guildford Western Australia where it was unveiled to a crowd of several hundred people earlier this month.
The commission of the sculpture, worth over $400,000, was brought about by the local historical society, the present-day light horse brigade, the local council, and interested members of the community.
The artist behind the work, Dr Charles Robb, senior lecturer at Queensland University of Technology, told the Mail that it took the committee six years of lobbying federal, state, and local governments to gain the required funding.
“This is a fantastic example of a community’s will, coming together to have history acknowledged in sculpture form,” Charles said.
“There is a great sense of duty and responsibility to the history of the regiment, which is central to the ANZACS. This made the project both appealing and daunting.
“I hope I’ve done the story justice,” Charles said.
“It was amazing to see the statue in its bronzed glory and to see the joy and feeling it aroused in people.”
Charles and his team spent more than two and a half thousand hours over a period of 18 months working on the moulds of the digger and his horse before sending it to Billmans Foundry in Castlemaine, where a further 300 to 400 hours of work were required.
A lot of the smaller elements of the sculpture including the buckles, badges, buttons, feathers, and even the hands were produced using a 3D printer.
“Once it was sent to Billmans that’s when the serious and ferocious work began,” Charles said.
Travis Billman told the Mail that it took five moulders and three welders, plus the assistance of Phil Mune from Eclipse Bronze Art in Elphinstone who worked on the finer details using a lost-wax casting technique.
“There were over 40 pieces that needed to be assembled. Once completed it weighed half a ton,” Travis said.
Once assembled Peter DeGargis, a colour specialist from Melbourne, spent an entire day using different chemicals creating different temperatures with a hot torch to produce colour variations.
Charles noted that the staff at Billmans Foundry have an incredibly broad array of knowledge.
“They moved heaven and earth to pull together a very immense and complex in a seamless way, with a high level of attention to detail,” he said.
“I can’t speak highly enough of the team at Billmans who were lovely to deal with, positive, creative, and energetic. They invested as much love into the project as myself and my team.”