Jewelry Casting: Part One

Jewelry Casting: Part One
So the first thing that we need to do, this is a typical centrifugal caster or a spin caster is go ahead and spin it up. We have spring loaded casing here at the bottom. The first thing that you want to do is balance it so that when the force of the metal is pushed to this side it will balance and keep the machine nice and smooth and even and make your throw much cleaner. I’ve already pre-balanced this so we’re not going to need to get into that too much. First thing I would do, and I’m starting at this pin here is wind it once, twice, three times and I’m going to catch it with this pin here. It’s got quite a bit of strength in there and it’s going to give it a nice spin when we let it go. But we’re not ready to do that yet. The first thing that I am going to do is heat my sterling silver metal in this crucible, this is what we call a crucible. You do want to coat your crucible with a boric acid which gives it a nice glossy surface and keeps your metal from getting contaminated and keeps everything nice and clean for your shoot. So we slide that into your center fuse, get the appropriate size cradle which just basically holds whatever size flask that you’re working with, or mold. And then we would pre-heat the crucible and what I’m using here is an oxygen and a settling torch. Most people use propane, which burns much cleaner, this is more for welding purposes, this is what I use here. Propane and oxygen work just fine. Go head and light my torch, give it some oxygen, that’s a pretty high flame for casting. We want it just a little bit more lighter. And right now all I’m doing is preparing my crucible so that I can insert my metal and have it nice and ready to melt. That takes just a few minutes here. Going to go ahead and coat the base of the crucible with boric acid, like I said to keep it nice and clean to keep contaminants out of your casting. That will just bubble up and make a nice glassy surface on the base of your crucible. Once you get the crucible pretty warm I made a little shovel type contraption to insert my metal and keep my hands away from the heat and the flame. I’m going to go ahead and put that in, keeping the torch on there nice and heated. I’m using here some old metal I used for another casting. It is reusable you can remelt old sterling silver, I wouldn’t suggest just grabbing anything but you definitely can have it tested to make sure it’s pure and clean and all of that. And a little bit of casting grain which I buy from the local jewelry supply store. You can also order it from catalogues. You want to heat around the metal more than directly on the metal. To make sure it has a nice even heat on it and not overheat or boil your metal. Silver melts much faster, it’s much softer than gold and other materials, including bronze. Bronze is pretty hard to melt in an even matter. I think we’re going to go ahead and add a little more boric acid to make sure it gets nice and clean. As you can see it’s creating a nice pool and it’s pretty close to being ready to insert into my flask or my mold. And I’m going to grab that right now and cut off my torch.