Stones cast in place & the "stone pendant"

Test #2 fresh out of the mold

 In yesterday's post I wrote about my efforts to develop my process for casting stones in place. I should add that I am setting them nearly flush with the ring surface too. You've seen this of course. I'm not clear how many folks are casting them in place or are Pave setting them. Pave is a technique I have not tried. It involves pushing the metal around the stone into the the stone to hold it fast. This is done with hammers & various punch or chisel like tools. Then the metal is made smooth by hammering, filing, sanding, etc. Casting in place is promising because it not only save labor but it seems potentially less risky for stones that will tolerate the temperatures.

To the left here is the #2 test right after I de-molded it. I was thrilled to see the bright stones looking out at me from the scale. All five made it this time!

Test #2 after finishing.

The scale is particularly heavy this time. I owe this to keeping the flask at 1350° F for the pour. I have in the past been lowering it to 1100° or 1200° F. I'm not convinced this is really the reason. More trials will tell.

To the right is the #2 test after finishing. This is more of a matte finish done with the magnetic pin finisher.  I'm really happy with this ring and I'm keeping it!

So now we can move onto colored stones and the production versions of the women's Rivers series.

Below is a picture of waxes for new design and process. What I am doing here is taking impressions from interesting stones I find and turning them into a pendant or other pieces. I started with a pendant because this stone's impression looked good as a pendant. I was actually looking for a pattern in it that would work as earrings but it's just not there.

Stone pendant waxes

The process begins with finding stones that have textures and shapes that might work as pieces of jewelry. I have pretty good 3-D perception. Even so this can be challenging. Once I find a good stone the process looks basically like this:

I clean it up with soap & water

Make matching negative and positive molds of it with silicone

Create a spacer between the molds for the thickness I want

Then inject wax into the mold

The result is a thin wax piece that has a mirror image of the stone's surface front & back.

Each wax is trimmed & shaped by hand at this point. Eventually I will pick a few of the best pieces and make molds of them. 

Then the waxes are attached to sprues & vents and invested in plaster. The investment is followed by the wax burnout process and then the molten silver is poured into the remaining plaster mold. Following the pour the silver pieces are then de-molded and finished. 

Hopefully in the next few days I'll have some cool looking pendants to show you!

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