Saturday, September 12, 2009

Lost Wax Casting - Part 2 ( Part 1 actually)


I guess this this actually part 1, because all the work we are doing here, comes before the last post.
The first photo is of me setting up the wax molds on a "button" of wax. I fit as many wax pieces on the button as space allows, as long as the pieces are not touching. We had anywhere from 10-15 pieces per button.


The next step is to "make the biscuits" as Horace puts it. You mix up a fine white powder with water, vaccuum out the bubbles and carefully, pour it over the flasks. They also get vacuumed for air bubbles. They are then put into a kiln for about 9 hours to burn out the wax on the buttons. Once that is accomplished, you can can shoot the hot silver into the areas of the flask that don't have the wax and...."ta-da" you have silver pieces like the ones I show below.



Ok, so maybe there are a few more steps..like cutting the pieces off the button and cleaning them up, tumbling the shine back onto them and buffing them to a high shine. It is pretty much a two day process though and one that Neil is getting pretty good at.


2 comments:

Dee said...

Pretty cool Dawn...so are those your finished pieces below??

Caly's Jewelry Creations said...

Yes maam..!!! Neil was pretty proud..! We both had a hand in them, but he "cast" the hot silver into the burn out molds to create what you see. There was a lot of finishing work that we did on them after, but that is the final product.