CLEAN UP CLEAN UP, everybody do your share!

   Working in metals can be laborious and time consuming (of course) but it is always worth it! We can spend as much time cleaning up a piece of work as we spend designing and creating it. Clean up includes rough filing sharp edges/filled in air bubbles. 

   For this ring, filing it to fit a certain ring size can take a while! Also sanding the object with at least 3 different gradients of sand paper. And finally, polishing/stone setting.

Ok, so here is the freshly casted, ROUGH, soon-to-be-stone-set sterling display:

   

   

I used heavy-duty wire cutters to remove the "stand" or cast sprues from the ring. Then I used sanding mandrels and sandpaper to clean it up. As well as a rubber polishing mandrel afterwards to polish it up.

                            

                                     

Stone Setting/More Wax molds!

   I have now gotten the hang of wax mold-making using specifics such as dental tools, flex shaft with drill bits/mandrels, wire hangers, etc. 

   This is my first stone setting with prongs in a mold. (The mold was not complete in this picture, and the prongs were not added, YET)

I used a specific stone setting mandrel to fit the size of the stone; here is an interesting blog providing a small amount of information on stone setting-- http://stoneycreeksilver.blogspot.com/p/page-3-drills-used-to-make-place-to-put.html

First Sterling Cast: COMPLETE!

   Here is a picture of: 1. My completed, finished, polished "Dinosaur Ring", 

2. A wax mold, with the fitting stone in it (Temporarily before casting)

3. A sterling silver and gold ring with a green amethyst stone (I did not make that ring, but I do love it!)

   Now introducing the second sterling casting that I have done from a mold, this time feature include my first stone/prong setting.

   It was challenging however I am thankful I decided to choose a larger stone for my first attempt (obviously because smaller stones are much harder to work with on such a small scale!)

Just like to model my work in progress! Don't forget---for a closer view you may click on the picture to zoom in!

Sterling Silver Casting

Centrifugal Casting with sterling silver. 

Started with the wax mold, ended up with this rough sterling ring, here is a sneak peak of it BEFORE clean up:



(Please excuse my dirty fingers!)


Here is a picture of it when it was cut from the sprues, I could have made the wax mold just a little bit bigger to fit my finger before I had completed the casting just because it took longer than it should have to file the inside out to fit my ring finger. It only fit my pinky-finger when the casting was complete! No big deal! 

Centrifugal & Vacuum Assist Casting YouTube

This was a good video to get an idea of what I did with the casting of my wax mold. 
Even though it isn't a hands-on, in-class experience, a lot of tutorials on the internet can help you get ideas, get pointers, or just get unstuck if you're having troubles with something. I like to use youtube to refresh myself on things I haven't done in a while. 

Inspiration: Dinosaur

   Moving away from the fabrication of metals, and moving towards mold creating & wax casting. Although the process is not incredibly complicated, there are many steps to complete with accuracy. In contrast to fabricating a piece of work, both processes are tedious and time consuming when dealing with intricate design. 

   A lot of people like to use both wax casting as well as fabrication to achieve a specific design for one piece. For this particular project, my inspiration was from a dinosaur figurine. I chose something slightly organic in essence because of this process and I wanted to utilize the technique to accomplish what the fabrication process cannot. 

   With the wax casting I found that it was hard to get started if you haven't done it before. It is a challenge to envision a 3 dimensional design and to carve it from a whole piece of wax. Using the flex shaft with a drill bit to carve out small spaces was strongly effective. As a beginner you start to love certain tools that you find to be the most useful.

   During this ring making process, I broke my wax mold but was taught to repair using a heat pen, keeping a cautious eye open for air bubbles in the mold that could possibly result in casting complications. Wax is an amazing material to work with because it has the ability to be recycled constantly, it is never wasted and can always be repaired. 

First Bezel-Setting a Cabochon

     As beginner Jewelry/Metals students, everyone has to start somewhere. First learning how to  create effective designs, sweat solder, form rings, Bezel-Setting Cabochon's and most importantly, learning the order of process for these new techniques.

   Some photo's of my first Cabochon settings;

   Obviously learning many things my first attempts. For this project my inspiration came from pictures of Ivy vines. My intentions were to have a vine-like, caged, organic leaf covering over the cabochon. 

   I learned something very important about jewelry from this first project- If it is going to be worn often (not just for fashion purposes), it must be comfortable, and these rings are slightly sharp!