Editing Paul Francis Lawson (section)

===Manufacture of the bust===
Lawson's method was to build a wooden frame around the upper body, plugging up any gaps with clay.  He then poured in plaster of Paris,
to create a mould. The process was then repeated with the body turned over, to make the second half of the mould.  Then the ears had to have individual moulds made. The man's hair appears neatly in the final bust, as Lawson employed a trick of combing liquid soap into the hair so it wouldn't stick to the plaster. Once the moulds were completed at the City Morgue, Lawson was then able to take them back to his lab to finally cast the bust and ears, and stick the ears into place. For the casting process he used plaster of Paris reinforced with sisal fibres. The original mould does not exist today as it had to be chipped away from the bust and discarded. Because, the body had been lying on a morgue slab for six months the back of the head appears flattened.

Before the ears were moulded, Lawson first had to convert the plaster mould of the ears into a wax mould. Then the ears were cast in the wax mould. This is because the ears were fragile and the wax mould could be easily melted away at the end of the process.