Saturday, August 22, 2009

Gear Ring in Sterling Silver



This ring isn't for the faint of heart. It's edgy and bold.

This ring was made by utilizing the technique of lost wax casting. I carved the gear shape from a block of wax by hand and smoothed the sides with sandpaper. I attached the sprue, built the wax tree, mixed and poured the investment, and kiln fired the piece myself. Once the wax model was melted away and the investment was properly cured I used a casting torch and a centrifugal casting machine to force molten sterling silver into the empty cavity inside the investment. Centrifugal casting uses a spinning action and gravity to get a clean fill in the investment.

I cleaned the investment away and cleaned the ring. Then I finished the ring with a matte finishing using a 3M satin finishing buff on a polishing machine. The buff gives a super smooth matte finish.

The ring is heavy - but not overly so and the band is 1cm wide (3/8''). The grooves that make up the gear shape make the ring super comfortable to wear, your fingers rest between them.

Size 7

HUGS

Cait

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow - beautiful. So much work, but worth it for a wearable piece of art!

Caitlin said...

Yup, it was a bunch of work... But I like casting. You couldn't easily get the same look from fabrication and it would end up being a waste of metal to carve/file the shape instead of using lost wax casting.