[Jewelry making - Article 00146] - Re: [Orchid] Casting billets

[Brian Barrett]

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Hi Stanley,

    I have had trouble with sterling billets (small round bars), but
    with 18ct gold I have had no troubles at all. When the metal first
    becomes liquid I add a small pinch of borax. Literally a half pinch.
    I mix the metal with a carbon rod, and most of the borax sticks to
    the rod. I heat until the metal will remain molten for a second after
    the heat is removed. I tend to pour the through the torch flame into
    the mould. I make round billets (19g, 3 inches long) and then use the
    rolling mill to make them square. Now I don't get borax includions
    very often, but when I do, they all roll out in the mill, but as I
    said I'm going from round to square, so by the time I have the
    largest square billet, I have flattened all of the surfaces. 

    I used to get borax inclusions for 2 reasons. Firstly, I was using
    too much borax, and secondly I didn't stir the molten metal with a
    carbon rod. Now on the borax note, when I was using too much borax,
    most of it would solidify in the crucible, and so I had to chip out
    most of it before the amount of borax added to the melt mattered at
    all to the inclusions in the cast. 

    Brian 

    P.S. I offer these sugestions as an amateur and have no professional
    training whatsoever in this art.... 


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