Mold Making

14K Pink Casting Grain – made with recycled gold…

Jewelers need to make molds of objects and parts frequently. Usually wax is poured into the molds and the results used for casting. There are all sorts of vulcanized rubber molds, silicone molds and others which are intended for specific problems,…

William Underhill came to bronze pots just as his teacher at the University of California at Berkeley Peter Voulkos was leaving clay ones. After a decade of stacking, slashing and cantilevering pots—attempting to stretch their skins into…

Jewelers are always molding objects and parts, most often to use for making wax models for casting. There are many vulcanized rubber and silicone mold materials intended for this purpose in the jewelry industry, but what if you need to make…

These slow, quiet days of summer are always a good time to review your shop practices before the busy holiday season kicks into high gear.  To help you prepare to successfully cast all of the pieces you hope will be big sellers this year, we’ve …

Recently this
 custom ring design
 came to my bench
 with the request that 
it be made in platinum and a rubber
mold be created in
case our store ever
 wanted to make a 
second ring. The
 new ring was to be
made for a 1.5…

In my first article I made a rubber “sandwich” mold of this basket style mounting. The focus of this article is how to cut the rubber mold so that I can get clean wax injections that require a minimal amount of labor to finish. The type…

Recently a customer requested that we make her an unusual mother’s ring. She chose a magnificent 3.56 ct. oval blue sapphire as her center stone and this design was made for her ring. The two bezel set side stones, one an emerald, the other…

Welcome to Stacey Rhodes Jewelry Designs, where we will detail all of the steps involved in adding a new piece of jewelry to our line. In this issue we will be working with our latest design. I’ll take you through every phase of production,…

Welcometo Stacey Rhodes Jewelry Designs, where we will detail all of the steps involved in adding a new piece ofjewelry to our line. In this issue we will be working with our latest design. I’ll take you through every phase of production,…

Jewelers are always molding objects and parts, most often to use for making wax models for casting. There are many vulcanized rubber and silicone mold materials intended for this purpose in the jewelry industry, but what if you need to make…

Cuttlefish casting is a quick and fairly accurate casting method. Its applications are limited only by the thickness and overall dimensions of the shell. It is difficult to achieve fine details on the surface of the casting, but this is offset…

Natural rubber or silicone rubber? In the world of lost wax casting, this question is hardly an academic one. The mold material chosen must be up to the task of turning a single original model into hundreds or even thousands of wax models for casting,…

There are two brands of metal clay available today; Precious Metal Clay and Art Clay Silver. There are a lot of similarities between the two, and some differences. My experience is with Precious Metal Clay (PMC), so the techniques and methods…

The new Romanoff LMR is a clear silicone RTV (room temperature vulcanizing) liquid mold rubber compound with a platinum-containing catalyst, which makes it ideal for use by jewelry manufacturers. Curing can be heat-accelerated, but the…

Invented by Victor Joyner, a Chicagobased manufacturing jeweler, patented High Definition (HD) Patterns are made of a light-curing polymer material that can he injected into a silicone mold with very low pressure at room temperature. After…

Mold cutting sounds simple enough: Using a sharp knife and a simple tool, such as a can opener or a pair of vise grips, the mold maker separates a rubber mold into two halves, allowing the model and subsequent waxes to be removed. But like so many…

Accurately laying out an oval or marquis stone in wax can be tricky business. We learned this foolproof method for getting a perfect layout every time after years of difficulty.

n this installment we present a mold cutting technique called a spiral cut, which is designed to facilitate the successful release of a cage-like wax model from a mold.

Everybody scampers for executing orders in a rush against all odds to satisfy customers or – if you’#39;re lucky – to make customers smile with a piece you’#39;ve created with your craft.
But how about yourself? Why not take the time, unwind…

The company Alkiviadis C. Efthimiou is active in the jewelry industry since 1987. Over the past 15 years we became the experts of manufacturing the mold of your prototypes in various types of silicons, so you can produce wax models for casting…

Mold cutting Akron RTV-RP clear silicone. Cylinder mold was cured in a round film canister which saves about 1/2 the normal amount of silicone. RP master was designed by Diannah Beauregard in western North Carolina. RP master was built at Rio…

Flat cut silicone mold using Castaldo VLT rubber.

Tools for making natural rubber molds.