I’ve been training in wax castings now for around 4 months, a really interesting industry to be in 😊 Even tried polishing a casted silver keeper ring crazy how it all comes to life
I know you’re all about old school techniques and I appreciate and enjoy that side of jewellery BUT a laser welder would have very easily resolved that signet ring porosity issue
Chris, I've tried to find "pink silver" without having to plate it the pickle pot (hahaha), but haven't found any. Can you find me the alloy or the recipe (percentages)? Please and thanks! Refiners add copper to gold to make it "rose", it must be possible to pink up a white metal ; sterling/fine silver.....Also, I use a Mizzy wheel to get larger sprues cleaned up. Often called heatless wheels, they are hard and take material off quickly with the advantage of being able to isolate the area being reduced/cleaned up, the way a 3/4" wheel can.
Great stuff. I was looking at casting companies. Do you prefer to make in silver and get it cast in gold/platinum rather than making a one-off in platinum item? I only ask because you often comment how hand made is better for polishing some hard to get at areas, than castings. Or is the casting like a backup so you can make several rings the same after the one-off hand made piece? I've just made my first 9ct gold ring - then realising it was over 1gm decided it was time to register with the Assay office in London. Now I have my own makers mark and it feels rather nice - seems lazer hallmarking is the standard now :-) I want to have a go at enamelling on gold next but I suspect I'll need all sorts of specialist equipment. I remember doing some as a kid with a powder which was then melted in a kiln to make the enamel 'glass' finish.
castings are nice because there are no solder joins but a whole ring cast in 1 piece is difficult to polish well. Collets are useful cast for replicas in the future. It can save a lot of time if you already have a casting of a collet and only hand make a shank
a lot of the time when we do castings we do extras, usually platinum and gold has shanks and collets but with a hole ring you can use a pin polisher it gets in all the little grooves
MAAAAAaaate ! STOP ! what you doing using a file on plat ????? you know you gonna have a dog hard time gettin the file marks out - use coarse paper every time for first finish up, you will thank yourself...............I got hundreds of hours plat casting clean up thru to finished product handing over to customers. The only time I'd touch a file is for sprue remains
