Hey everyone,

This post is mostly for JLoose and others who have done lost wax casting. I had severial years of jewelry making in junior/senior high schools (called studioarts) and we did mostly low level things; pierce sawing, enamaling, chasing and casting.

When we did lost wax casting (we used steam, vacuume and centrifugal) we used a kiln to heat the molds to melt the wax and prevent the mold from cracking. How can you prevent the mold from cracking if you don't have a kiln? Can you use a torch to heat? 1200F+ seems like a lot of heating in a mass that big and to keep it even.

Any advise would be appriciated as I would like to use some of the skills I learned in these classes, but am not sure what can be applied and what can't. I'm sure that enamelling can't because it would remove the temper, chasing stainless steel seems like a trial in frustation. I was thinking that casting of silver bolsters.

Drac

Hey-

Sorry I didn't see this sooner... I really didn't do much of anything besides work int he studio for the last two weeks before Blade!

If you don't have kiln for burnout then some other solutions include sand-casting, or casting into other direct mediums such as cuttlefish, soapstone or charcoal. The only drawback to most of these is that you can't undercut much; but some of these will yield great detail with care.

A makeshift burnout kiln can be made with a flowerpot, some tin foil and an electric hot plate!

I would recommend Tim McCreight's 'Complete Casting,' as an intro to these techniques and as a good source for workarounds to expensive tools. You can find it through Rio Grande or likely Amazon.

JLoose,

Thanks for getting back with me, I kinda figured all of you were busy because of the show. I sent you the e-mail so as not to clotter-up the posts. It's been said before you guys have jobs to do and anytime you spend away from your jobs to help us newbies is appriciated.

My classes in jr/sr high were not as advance as the ones you took for your degree. I never used sandcasting, let along heard of the other. I will check the libraries for that book and if they don't pan out, I'll order it from Amazon.

Thanks for your time,

You're welcome...

I think you'll be surprised how easy some of these techniques can be... the key is to give yourself time to -play-

I taught an intro to casting class once using pewter and cuttlefish ( cuttlefish have a soft bony structure that you can easily carve and cast into ) It was really easy for people to start getting creative.

You could start with pewter since it melts at such a low temp ( 700-900 F ) and move up to silver / bronze etc.

Like I said, the key is to play and experiment... so have fun!

There's a fellow in the Virgin Islands who uses a flower pot for a kiln to void the wax from his investment on small projects.

www.anvilfire.com/iForge/tutor/vi_copper_c1/index.htm (http://www.anvilfire.com/iForge/tutor/vi_copper_c1/index.htm)

My father and I actually used the flower pot technigue when I was young man. We found that two flower pots work much better. We used two flower pots (one large enough to go over the other with a small air gap) and a Coleman stove. The smaller pot has to be big enought to completely cover the burner (you want to catche every single BTU you can).

It worked pretty well. It cured the investment plaster and burned off the wax. It left a little black soot from the wax behind. My current kiln, burns even that off.

Scott B. Jaqua