Wax carving a sterling silver ring

I love trying out new jewellery techniques and this summer was no exception! I signed up for the beginners wax carving class at the London Jewellery School.

The process of wax carving

With wax carving (also know as lost wax casting) you start out with a lump of wax which you cut, carve, file and sand down until it is the shape you want. Once this is complete, the wax piece is sent to a caster. You choose the metal you would like the piece to be made into (for example brass, sterling silver, gold). The wax piece is attached to a wax tree, along with several others, so that many pieces can be cast at once. The tree is then encased in a plaster-like substance called investment. Once this has hardened the wax is burnt out leaving a cavity in the mould. Molten metal is then poured into the mould. Once the metal has cooled and hardened the jewellery pieces are cut from the ‘tree’. When you receive your piece back it will still need a bit of work to polish up. It will have a sprue, a bit of additional metal where the piece of jewellery had been attached to the tree. This just needs to be filed off.

Have a look at this excellent video showing the whole process when jewellery making is done on a more industrial scale. Forward to 50 seconds to see how the wax tree is made and cast.

In the class we started out by creating a technical drawing of our design, complete with measurements. This is a drawing, usually on graph paper, showing all angles of the piece. This means the front, side and top profile.

I found this challenging. In my metal clay work I tend to work with a basic sketch and the piece evolves. With wax you need to be a bit more disciplined and have a good idea of how it will look in the end.

I decided to have a go at making a ring (although you can make what you want. Others in the class made earrings, pendants etc). Once I had the beginnings of a sketched idea I cut myself a block of wax. Then there is a lot of sawing, filing and sanding to make the piece. A LOT!

This again is different from the way jewellery makers tend to work. We usually work by adding to rather than removing so it is a little more like sculpting in that respect. Using wax is a really interesting and forgiving way of making jewellery. If it breaks you can melt the wax to fix it. If you take off too much wax you can always melt and add more.

The finished wax piece

A few days after the class I took the wax carved piece to a caster. The casters used by the London Jewellery School are

I took mine to Just Castings in Hatton Garden, London and had it cast in sterling silver. I was very impressed with the quality of the casting and I thought the price was very reasonable as my ring is quite a large piece.

My finished ring (Copyright Anna Campbell 2014)

I am really pleased with my first attempt at wax carving. It does take some time and patience to get right but it is a great way to make a piece in silver that could not be made in the traditional way. You don’t need a lot of tools at home to work with wax and the wax itself is inexpensive. I will definitely be trying it again in the future.

Adapted from a blog post that I originally wrote for the London Jewellery School that was published by them on 25th September 2014