Brodin Studios will make solid bronze replicas of any badge. We will work from a photograph, line drawing or even a clear photocopy. All details are duplicated accurately, including the center seal. Badge replicas are generally created in a size slightly smaller than actual size, but we can make any size you wish, including over-sized replicas of nine to twelve inches tall. Bronze replica badges are mounted on the base of most of our miniatures. Badges are generally finished with our antique bronze patina, but for an additional charge, may be silver- or gold-plated.
Year ago, Rodger Brodin, the company’s original artist, would labor over a new badge design for 20 hours or more, carving the intricate low-relief surface in a hard plaster called Dental Stone. Starting with a round flat surface, he’d draw the outline of the badge, then carve “into” the plaster. A mold was taken that produced a raised image, Rodger would carve “onto” that image, successively raising and lowering the shape, into & onto, in and out, each time gaining detail, so, eventually, through a series of what he called, “flips” (the repeated taking of new molds), the badge would emerge. A rubber mold taken from the plaster, wax poured into rubber, burned out at the foundry, replaced with 2,000 degree bronze and you have a copy of your chest badge. He hand-carved over 800 badges until his untimely death in 1995. Sad to say, but computers have taken over where the artist had left off, a thousand new department badges later and we are able to give you real quality in 2/3rds life-scale. We put your badge number, name and rank onto your badge and it joins your custom cop statue for a one-of-a-kind personal tribute to a job well done.
