Advice On Carving A 'Lost Wax' Ring
Q: Hello. I am new to designing jewellery and carving wax. I was wondering if anyone one could give me some tips on how to carve my ring for the lost wax process, or direct to a link that has the information already. I have purchased a tube of blue Matt Wax (easiest to work with for beginners (or so I was told)) and a kit of 6 dentist-style tools. I will be setting two stones (one 5mm trillion cut alexandrite and one 5mm trillion cut color-change garnet) into my final ring, and I will be using pre-calibrated settings for the stones. The design is already planned out, and it is unfortunately symmetircal. The final ring will be made of white gold. I will be doing some practicing before the final. So the main things I am wondering are: What do I need to know when carving a ring from wax? (the not-to-do) How do i design the ring to fit the calibrated settings?
A: The Gold ring will be smaller one mm in circumference. There should be courses offered for wax carving. My sister had one in Chicaco
A: Shurely they could help. [You plan to solder those on? It's usually preferable to cast the whole thing with the settings integral, but maybe that's just my aesthetic sense speaking.] [Try to avoid very thick sections next to very thin ones - this can cause difficulties in casting.] [Generally, you'd leave a flat spot high enough to be able to file it true, large enough for the base of the finding.] [Use palladium white gold if you can afford it; it's nicer to work with than the nickel alloys, and is much less likely to cause allergic reactions.]