One of the questions I get asked most often in the comments is: "But how does a jewel made of wax become silver?" Today I will try to explain in a simple and clear way the process of lost wax casting.
To show you each step, I went to Marco's workshop, where he casts all my jewelry. The first step is to create the wax models . If it's a new design, the wax is modeled from scratch. However, in these photos, I will show you wax models created from a mold.
Once the prototype of the jewel is made, a mold is created to replicate the model. This mold is a piece of yellow rubber, as you can see in the photos. The process to create a wax model is simple: you inject hot wax into the mold using a machine called a wax injector and wait for the wax to solidify.
Once the wax models are obtained, they are assembled on a main trunk , forming a structure that resembles a tree. This arrangement allows for casting multiple jewels at the same time.
Once the wax tree is completed, it is placed into a cylinder, and liquid plaster , a refractory material that will create a solid shape around the wax tree, will then be poured inside.
The cylinder with the plaster is then placed in a high-temperature oven for several hours. This step is crucial: the heat melts the wax, which is eliminated through drains, leaving a void inside the plaster. This void exactly reproduces the shape of the wax jewelry that was there before.
At this point, the metal is melted. In this case, silver is melted and poured into the empty plaster mold. The liquid metal flows through the main channel of the tree and fills the cavities created by the wax models.
Once the silver has cooled and solidified, the plaster is broken to reveal the silver jewelry tree .
The next step is to separate the individual pieces of jewelry from the tree. Each piece is then carefully finished, through processes such as polishing, soldering, or other finishes, until the desired final result is achieved.
