2/8/2020 10:30am-6pm Janet Alexander Wax Carving, Sand Casting & Fabrication

Now you have a chance to learn how to create your own unique cast jewelry from start to finish! Start out with a rectangular piece of carving wax and make it into a part of a pendant by casting it in silver using the sand casting technique. Then take the casting, clean it up, and then solder a bail onto it. Janet carved commercial waxes for jewelry designers and will teach you her tricks and tips. Learn how to make a lump of wax into a beautiful wax model used for imprinting the sand. This is a great way to make multiples with less time and effort, especially for making earring sets or bracelet links! Learn about sprues, what they are and their function for preventing porosity. Learn how to accurately measure how much metal is needed for you casting using a math equation.
The skills learned in this will change how you make jewelry. You can go from sawing and soldering flat pieces to making 3-D jewelry. Now you will know what to do with all those silver scraps you’ve been collecting!

Skills and knowledge learned in this class:

• All about carving waxes, what their colors mean and the differences in hardness
• Tools for carving waxes are simple, make your own
• Making your own wax pen
• Using dividers and calipers for exact measurements and plotting your design.
• Transferring a design to wax
• Weighing wax and metals
• Figuring how much metal is needed for a specific wax model
• Casting silver in sand
• Making a crucible ready for casting
• Melting silver for casting
• Cleaning up your cast piece
• Fabricating a bail and soldering it onto the cast piece

Carving wax, paper, sprue wax, wax dust, double half round wire 1 ¾” long (for bail), tracing paper, mask, talcum powder, masking tape, plastic table cloth, liver of sulfur, 400 and 600 grit sandpaper, baking soda, silver solder, flux, and printed handout. Janet will bring extra sterling silver scrap to purchase in class should you need some.

Your scrap sterling silver (no metal clay pieces) craft knife (Exacto knife with new blade), ruler with millimeter measurements, 4” dividers, toothbrush, pencil, flat needle file, Barrett file #4 (fine cut), jeweler’s saw, #04 blades, needle nose pliers, round nose pliers, flush cut wire cutters, fine tipped permanent marker, optional battery powered work light.

Wubbers™ bail making pliers, Calculator, shape templates, pointed dental tools, miter saw and frame, scale, crucibles, torches, sand, pusher for sand, casting frame, stir rod, cookie sheets, scraping knife, mm gauge, wide coarse files, file brush, cups for casting silver, Joyce Chen scissors, drill bits, self-locking tweezers, ball burs, misc. carving burs, soldering stations, T-pins, safety glasses, small flat blade screw driver, plastic ring bending pliers, half round pliers, round nose pliers, third hands, pickle, pickle pot, copper tongs, rinse bowls, fire bricks, torch fuel, Borax quenching bowl, trash bucket, wide saw blades, Missy wheel, eye protection, wax blades, cup for liver of sulfur, bench pin, C clamp, flex shafts, key, small felt buff for flex shaft, wax cleaner, and extension cords, extra supplies and tools for late registrants to use during class.