Lost Wax Casting Step 1 of 9 Sprueing waxes

[Toyman1982]

Why would you throw wax away? you cant re-melt it? i mean seriously? that crap is expensive!

[bhupeshhanda735]

hi,

I had using polymer mold and latex mold. but when I withdraw wax the wax broke out in peices plz help what kind of material you are using in making mold , and furthet if you are using mold release. please help

from Bhupesh Handa (India)

[bhupeshhanda735]

hi,

I had using polymer mold and latex mold. but when I withdraw wax the wax broke out in peices plz help what kind of material you are using in making mold , and furthet if you are using mold release. please help

from Bhupesh Handa

[RENTAMOB1]

Very well done system i have lots of molds but now day one can send them out to be casted , the way i can do this is pore the silver/gold right into the vacuum assist , wait then quench and remove we did it this way at the school where i learned it ,most wax pattern co's will cast for you then you can do all the cutting and polishing.then sell at a price less than a jewellery store on a consigned bases .

[ragemanchoo82]

Whats w/ the brass beads in the rubber mold? We have to cut our own 'keys' @ my work. Its tricky. How do you do it w/ the brass beads? Do you just include them w/ the mold when you pack to volcanize?

We use the red injection wax. I've seen the light blue out there but I've never used it . I assumed was the only blue injecting wax... are you using blue carving wax? Yours looks pretty dark.

Is there a reason the "trunk" of the tree is so tall? You'd need less metal if it were shorter, right?

[FeatheredGems]

re: the brass 'keys'. I use the powder-separated mold method of opening molds. No cutting that way! The brass keys replace the keys you have to cut. Google that method--it's great for everything except rings.

re: wax--I'm using purple Accucarve wax by Kerr in my injector.

re: trunk--I could probably go a little shorter, but the height gives me room to spread them out so they don't touch. I re-use my sprue bases and trees, so it's not a big deal.

[hellotoy21]

Why are you discarding your failed waxes? You can put them back in the injector and melt them for reinjection. It's wasting wax and your money. Good series of vids.

[FeatheredGems]

Reusing discarded waxes is a bad habit. Anything that gets on the discarded waxes will contaminate the wax pot and ruin later waxes. I use cornstarch as a mold release, so my waxes are all contaminated. When I bought my shop equipment, the prior owner had reused her waxes. I kept getting junk showing up in waxes. When I cleaned it out the first time, the wax pot had about 1/2 inch of dust, dog hair, tiny bits of mold rubber and silver grinder dust from grinding in the bottom.

[ragemanchoo82]

It *can* contaminate, but if your area is clean and you keep the waxes you're working with in a small clean container (like a clean bowl or something), then you wouldn't have to worry

[shoobedoorocketship]

@FeatheredGems

good info to know, thanks!

[Rapido3d]

@FeatheredGems RE: re using wax, I agree with you in one respect, on one hand, the client is paying for the wasted wax so why worry? On the other hand, the wax is wax, all the "crap" in it can be filtered out quite easily, many oils and waxes are recycled by filtering and cleaning which of course is a lot more ECO friendly but can add labour to achieve. if you turn a large quantity over then I would make a simple filtering device and recycle.

[stuclouds]

hi, we are about to go into casting our own jewellery, we have previously had jewellery cast out of house for us. we want to recast some of these item we designed but they will be smaller than our original. is there anyway to counter act this? would adding some wax to a piece of silver before it is vulcanised be ok? this would be to make a shank on a ring thicker for example. we dont want our old designs to be too thin.

[FeatheredGems]

Sorry, I thought I had replied to this. You can't use wax to enlarge something that's going to be vulcanized--the wax will melt before the mold is solid. You will have to use a room-temperature (RTV) liquid rubber to make molds of anything that has wax attached to it.