Lost Wax Casting Step 1 of 9 Sprueing waxes
January 23, 2010 - 3:30 pm
Preparing for lost wax casting, step 1: attaching waxes to a central sprue and weighing them.
Feathered Gems Jewelry has documented the entire process of casting Braille charms for Seedlings Braille Books for Children.
Music: Pachelbel’s Canon in D
Duration : 0:6:32
[youtube C7lrNBOtgLY]
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
re: the brass ‘keys …
re: the brass ‘keys’. I use the powder-separated mold method of opening molds. No cutting that way! The brass keys replace the keys you have to cut. Google that method–it’s great for everything except rings.
re: wax–I’m using purple Accucarve wax by Kerr in my injector.
re: trunk–I could probably go a little shorter, but the height gives me room to spread them out so they don’t touch. I re-use my sprue bases and trees, so it’s not a big deal.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Whats w/ the brass …
Whats w/ the brass beads in the rubber mold? We have to cut our own ‘keys’ @ my work. Its tricky. How do you do it w/ the brass beads? Do you just include them w/ the mold when you pack to volcanize?
We use the red injection wax. I’ve seen the light blue out there but I’ve never used it . I assumed was the only blue injecting wax… are you using blue carving wax? Yours looks pretty dark.
Is there a reason the “trunk” of the tree is so tall? You’d need less metal if it were shorter, right?
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
It *can* …
It *can* contaminate, but if your area is clean and you keep the waxes you’re working with in a small clean container (like a clean bowl or something), then you wouldn’t have to worry
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Sorry, I thought I …
Sorry, I thought I had replied to this. You can’t use wax to enlarge something that’s going to be vulcanized–the wax will melt before the mold is solid. You will have to use a room-temperature (RTV) liquid rubber to make molds of anything that has wax attached to it.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Reusing discarded …
Reusing discarded waxes is a bad habit. Anything that gets on the discarded waxes will contaminate the wax pot and ruin later waxes. I use cornstarch as a mold release, so my waxes are all contaminated. When I bought my shop equipment, the prior owner had reused her waxes. I kept getting junk showing up in waxes. When I cleaned it out the first time, the wax pot had about 1/2 inch of dust, dog hair, tiny bits of mold rubber and silver grinder dust from grinding in the bottom.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Why are you …
Why are you discarding your failed waxes? You can put them back in the injector and melt them for reinjection. It’s wasting wax and your money. Good series of vids.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
hi, we are about to …
hi, we are about to go into casting our own jewellery, we have previously had jewellery cast out of house for us. we want to recast some of these item we designed but they will be smaller than our original. is there anyway to counter act this? would adding some wax to a piece of silver before it is vulcanised be ok? this would be to make a shank on a ring thicker for example. we dont want our old designs to be too thin.