[Jewelry making - Article 00642] - Re: [Orchid] Twigs Caster

[M'lou Brubaker]

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>     I understand the process perfectly fine. I'm a certified casting
>     technician through the Texas Institute of Jewelery Technology,
>     which extensive experience casting carved one-of-a-kind waxes and
>     regular mold waxes. I have also gained experience in wax carving.
>     There is a method to my madness, here. 

    Oh, I'm sorry I misunderstood, Susannah...you seem to have a very
    good background in casting! 

    You might want to keep a mold in your studio and send one to the
    caster to keep, if they are going to to repeat orders of the design
    for you very often. Otherwise, I find it is not too inconvenient or
    costly to send them back and forth. The only things I really hate to
    send are original models, since I really, really don't want to lose
    one of them in shipping! I keep my original models here.I have used
    my models to make duplicate molds for my studio use of a number of
    designs that my caster regularly does for me in silver, but a
    customer wants in gold. I find it much better for my bottom line to
    cast my own gold here, and the cost and time of making another mold
    is worth it. (I often cast extras for my retail display, while I am
    at it. Sometimes one's customers are a great resource for ideas of
    what folks want!) 

    Another possible trick is to use a vacuum cleaner to suck ash out of
    the mold just before casting. This may work better in the
    gravity-poured sculpture molds that have risers, but it might help
    even in our dead-end jewelry molds. 

    I, too, have found that a very light coating of wax on the twigs
    seems to help get the ash flushed out of the mold during burn-out. I
    think I will try acrilic spray next time, and see if there is a
    difference. 

M'lou Brubaker, Jeweler
Goodland, MN
www.craftswomen.com

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