The casting investment process enjoys wide popularity in the production of commercial and one-of-a-kind art metal objects. However, production practice varies widely. At one extreme, design renderings are turned over to a production…
It’s no wonder that as precious metals prices have risen to new heights over the past few years, jewelry castings have gotten thinner and lighter to maintain reasonable price points. It’s not uncommon today for impossibly thin…
As many jewelry manufacturers and goldsmiths know from hard experience, cracking in jewelry can occur at any time during its manufacture. It can also occur much later, after the jewelry has been sold to the consumer or during repair. Cracking…
Manufacturer spend much time and money diagnosing defects that are believed to originate in the casting process, but actually occur during waxing. Many companies run in circles, changing this gate/sprue, that metal, these temperatures,…
A good practice for preventing investment blowout is to measure the height of the trees before investing. The maximum tree height should be between 0.5 inch and (for larger trees with more metal) 0.75 inch shorter than the fill level of the flask.…
Platinum casting defects are often very difficult to characterize due to the intrinsic complexity of the investment casting process. All defects will fall into one or more of the established seven categories of casting defects. The proper…
Much of the recent literature on defects that occur in jewellery manufacture is focused on those occurring in lost wax investment casting. However, defects can also occur during casting of ingot and its fabrication into sheet, tube, wire…
A design riddled with undercuts and sharp little details just screams casting nightmare the moment the CAD file shows up. But sometimes even the most straightforward looking designs can cause real headaches for the caster. Take for example…