how it all starts...
Well - almost! The majority of the Sixtensdotter pieces are carved from jewellery wax once I have settled on a sketch I have drawn. Wax carving is a meditative process for me and I can spend hours doing it. Some of my pieces are forged, in which case - I start working with the metal straight away. I only work with 100% recycled precious metals.
making the moulds...
Moving on to mould making. I make these two-part silicone moulds specifically for Lost Wax Casting, whereas for Sand Casting no moulds are needed as the wax can be reused. In Lost Wax Casting, the wax burns away so I need to be able to remake the wax again, which I do by injecting wax into this silicone mould.
a silicone mould...
This is how the mould looks once it has set. Now it is ready to be injected with liquid jewellery wax.
wax injection...
Here you can see how the wax is injected into the silicone moulds. I can reuse my silicone moulds again and again. Once the wax has cooled, I will remove the wax from the silicone and inject it again.
a wax tree is made...
I attach all my waxes for casting onto a tree for lost wax casting. This way, I can cast multiple pieces at once. I try to fit in as many pieces as I can onto the tree.
prep for casting...
This is the Lost Wax Casting machine. We can use this for vacuuming our investment, and for pouring the metal into our investment mould. The investment is a powder and liquid mix, which we pour over the lost wax tree. Once the investment has set, we burn the wax out in a kiln. Once the wax is all gone, we are ready to pour our metal into the empty space where the wax tree was.
the wax tree is now a silver tree...
Look at how the silver comes out after casting. Now it needs a good clean...
a clean tree...
Here is the tree once it has been cleaned in the pickle and ultrasonic cleaner. Now the pieces are ready to be turned into jewellery! This is just the start of the process, now I have the castings - the casting clean up process starts. That means sprue removing, filing, sanding, polishing and stone setting.
