More and more people have asked me how wax carving jewellery works, how it's done and how you can get a finished metal ring if you start out the making journey in wax.
So, let me start by saying that it's a great and versatile jewellery making technique that lets you carve out intricate details that would be hard to make from metal sheet or wire. Wax is relatively easy to shape and form. Here're some pictures to show you the process of starting with a wax tube and finishing with a bomb ring.
The wax ring will then have to be cast in your chosen metal. At this stage it can either be sent off to a casting company who use a method called 'lost wax casting'. They build a mould around the wax model. Once this investment is set they melt out the wax. This cavity is where the molten metal flows into to form, in our case, a ring.
I tend to cast my own rings with a process called 'sand casting'. Essentially, the wax ring is pressed into sand to form a mould and molten metal is then poured into the created shape.
Here're some pictures to visualise this technique better (done with a different ring design in case you wondered).
The moment you see if it worked...
And the finished piece....
In case you'd like to find out more or get your own design idea cast, even using your own metal, do get in touch. I've used this process several times whereby I melted heirloom jewellery and gave old, forgotten jewellery pieces a new life by recycling the metal. Would be lovely hearing from you!