Ramblin' Dan's Workshop

I am expanding the amount of work and actually the quantity of lost wax castings I can produce.

My start-up was to make one piece or design in wax then cast one piece. The pattern wax is gone forever. That is the way it works with lost wax casting. Ha! That's why it is called lost wax. What the professional jeweler or anyone who wants to make a number of the same design does, is to use the first cast (the wax master is now lost) and make a rubber mold of that first casting. There is time to clean it up and make it look really good.

Then that original cleaned up first cast master is used to create a rubber mold. The metal master is carefully cut out from the rubber in a way to preserve the rubber mold of the master.

Now the rubber mold is injected with hot wax that will solidify as an exact replica of the metal master.

This new wax copy is now is now used to make another metal (silver) copy of the very original master though the lost wax casting process. Of course this new wax is now lost too, but the rubber mold and the wax injection permits almost an unlimited number of new wax masters to be quickly made for casting.

Many times multiple exact wax copies can be assembled on what looks like and is called a "tree". Then all the copies can be cast together in one mold in one pour. This saves an incredible amount of kiln time and casting material.

It's the best way to make multiple copies.

Here are the tools needed to produce injected wax copies:

Far left is the tumbler. Not part of the wax process. The pressure pot in the center is where the hot injection wax is melted and dispensed under air pressure. The big press to the right is where the aluminum mold frames are clamped and heated under pressure to vulcanize the rubber mold material. The molding (vulcanization) is very controlled hot process.	The pink material is bulk wax pellets. They are placed into the wax injection pot and melted into hot flowing wax. The wax is injected through a valve in the wax pot into the empty rubber mold cavity. The items to the right of the bag are a scalpel and blades to cut the master out of the rubber mold, leaving the empty cavity.
In the bubble wrap, looking like a picture frame are several mold frames for holding the rubber as it is being vulcanized. The Castaldo box contains the natural uncured rubber that is used to make the rubber mold.	Oh my! It all works! This is my first attempt and the rubber cutting is a bit crude and still a bit difficult for me and my stiff hands, but I was successful. Now it is a matter of practice makes (nearly) perfect.

I will show more of how these tools and machines are used to make rubber molds in the Lost Wax - Casting section of the workshop.