In Deep: Casting is caaa razy
In all the 2026 newness, I am happy to report that casting and I are getting to know each other. I've been sitting on an entire casting studio since COVID, after getting a sweet grant from the state for small business sustainability. I ordered all the stuff, talked to all the professionals, got a huge shipment on a pallet dropped out my front door, and we dragged it all into our basement, where it would sit sadly, for years. I had neither the tenacity to attack all the new technology nor the space in my business to allow the time to fail. And really that's what this is all about.
As mentioned in the prior post, I am not a fast person. I don't move quick on the draw. I like to marinate and move slowly towards my goals. Sometimes that serves me well. Others, it can be downright debilitating. I'm thankful that my partner is nearly the opposite, and Jesse's unwillingness to let me sit on this opportunity is maybe the only reason I have gotten this far. He is by far my better half, and moved his garage around so I could use a corner for this new endeavor. There's new benches and a tool box on wheels just for me. I have been learning that space, for this artist, is a huge deal. I've also been realizing that much of my hang-ups are avoiding the possibility of failure. Trial and Error, come to find out, is absolutely chock-full of...error.
What I am working with is a long-time industry favorite, the lost-wax casting process, with a Vic12 vacuum caster and a new-to-me furnace with a graphite pourer. It's pretty sweet, and not exactly what I learned in tech school, so a lot of this has been either dusting off very old processes I once saw demo-ed in school, devouring internet resources, phoning an artist friend, or just trying it out in real time. I've been very fortunate to have a few smithies at my call who are not just kind and helpful, but are just the cheerleaders I apparently need!
I also have a new-to-me wax bench and all the goodies that go with, stuffed in a corner of the already-full bungalito. I was fortunate enough in school to study with a fantastic world-class wax carver who just happened to teach our stone-setting courses, and she suggested we do private lessons, so I jumped at the chance. Jeri, wherever you are, thank you so much for your kindness and willingness to teach me this fine skill. It's the only thing I really felt like I knew when I started this whole path.
The wax is wild, guys! It's such an interesting way to make jewelry, and so very different than what I've done for the last decade or so. It's messy, quick, and brittle, but it allows for so much! There's different waxes in different colors indicating hardness, and there's liquid-y injection wax for shooting hot wax into silicone molds (a whole 'nother animal!) for duplicates. From a background of fabrication only, this kind of 3D work with wax in all her ways has absolutely broken my brain, in a good way. I'm really enjoying how quick I can model things, and how silicone molds pick up the teeniest details. I have yet to smooth out how we go from wax to metal, but I think we're getting somewhere.
Casting is liquid metal poured into a chalky-but-hard material called investment. In it is the wax mold on a 'tree' that gets burned away inside the investment to create negative space, a sort-of network pathways for the liquid metal to roll into while at around 1700 degrees, and then cool to a solid metal. It involves lots of steps, a kiln cycle of 8-12 hours, and many many hours of wax work beforehand. I would say the casting process has many similarities to pottery, with dry and cure times, kiln firings, and temperature regulation. I didn't realize it, but I am not good at timelines and don't think about processes in how many hours I need to execute something. It has been both a hard realization, and a steep learning curve! For reference, I have been in the world of fabrication nearly exclusively for the duration of my career, where silver comes in neat sheets or round wire to order, and I chop it up and solder it together accordingly. We are not just stepping out of the world of pre-fab right angles, we are literally melting them!
Wax Sprue trees, flasks ready for investment, and a silver tree, success!
Getting ready to melt scraps into the furnace.
Kiln and Vacuum Caster next to a climbing furnace set to 1750 eeek!
My first silicone mold of the year, a fish I started in wax and casted, then decided it would be fun to have the opportunity to make a billion fish, so I made the mold around the silver version. Don't recommend this way, but it worked!
Cutting the original out of the silicone and keeping the path as crisp as possible!
Rudy waiting for me to get my shit together in a new clean space with organized systems!
It's been a wild ride getting this new path in the same medium up and running.
It feels like birthing a baby maybe.
Or adding a huge pond to your already killer landscape.
Or swimming into the deep.
Thanks for being here, friends. It's fun to learn new things. It's not fun to suck at them, but like everyone says, it means you're on the right path!
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I will have wax pieces for sale sometime. These rings are a combined effort to work with injection wax from a mold I made in college, adding fine gold accents, working with a fresh batch of sapphires from Columbia Gem House, and the fabrication I know and love so much. I am very excited to start finding my voice in casting. And I'm so thankful to have had this year so far to really explore it. Thank you for being here.
