Spincus's Page

Hi, I am reprinting the last part of my previous blog post here and adding to the discussion. I also decided that I would do a multi part blog post on the lost wax casting method. Here is a sprue tree of wax that is going to be cast into silver soon. This sprue tree will be put into a flask and the flask will be filled with a plaster like substance called investment. Lots of work gets done along the way to help produce clean castings (surfactant wash, debubbling investment, deseaming wax). Once the wax has been encased in the investment, the flask is allowed to dry for a few hours. Then, the flask with the wax encased is put into a high temperature oven. For me, and everyone does this a bit different, I burn out the wax over about 12 hour time frame. The first stage of burn out is to drive off all the excess water. The next stage melts out almost all the wax leaving a negative space, hence the name lost wax The next stage is a slow ramp up to 1350. This turns what little stuff is left over from the organic material of the positive copy into gas and clears out any and all left over wax. The flask is then ready for casting. I use a vacuumed method for casting, many other folks use a centrifugal method. I could not tell you which is better because I learned on vacuum. The flask is placed into a special vacuum chamber and the molten metal is poured into the negative space. The result is a silver copy of the sprue tree you see above. Then the fun begins :) Actually the whole thing is extremely fun. For those of you that have tried home black and white dark rooms, the experience is like watching your image show up in the developer, but a whole lot longer and a whole lot more exciting. Here is the cast sprue. You are seeing raw sterling silver. What you are seeing is exactly what the metal looks like after all the investment has been removed from the metal. This clean up step takes me about 30 minutes to remove all the investment. It is important to remove it all because the investment is made up of microcrystaline quartz. Microcrystiline quarts is not good for your lungs. Some folks have expensive equipment to high pressure wash off the investment. I use a tooth brush, some dental tools and my ultrasound cleaner. The ultra sound is a life safer on time and effort for this task.

I am going to release several items of my new spring collection over the next week or so. Here is my first new work. The image is still a work in progress. Pearl Earrings in a hand made sterling setting. Here is the Etsy listing. The U shaped motif of the setting on these pearl earrings were designed with my three pearl in a pod ring in mind. These are bright white fresh water pearls, hand made earring wires, finished in what I call my dark tribal finish. Lots of attention to detail here. The ear wires are rounded on the ends, the edges of the ear wires are high gloss to help catch light. The ear wires are work hardened to help preserve shape. Dark tribal finish is a modern finish only really available to us in the last few of years. The results are often very difficult to capture in photography. The surfaces are first oxidized, and then are all micro scratched in an aligned direction similar to a CD or a DVD, and similar results. The result on sterling is that the surfaces positively glow in low light conditions as the light is captured in the and reflected in the micro scratches. These earrings look absolutely stunning in low light conditions. Stunning. Height 1.25" (3.25 cm) I also decided that I would do a multi part blog post on the lost wax casting method. Here is a sprue tree of wax that is going to be cast into silver soon. This sprue tree will be put into a flask and the flask will be filled with a plaster like substance called investment. Lots of work gets done along the way to help produce clean castings (surfactant wash, debubbling investment, deseaming wax). Once the wax has been encased in the investment, the flask is allowed to dry for a few hours. Then, the flask with the wax encased is put into a high temperature oven. For me, and everyone does this a bit different, I burn out the wax over about 12 hour time frame. The first stage of burn out is to drive off all the excess water. The next stage melts out almost all the wax leaving a negative space, hence the name lost wax The next stage is a slow ramp up to 1350. This turns what little stuff is left over from the organic material of the positive copy into gas and clears out any and all left over wax. The flask is then ready for casting. I use a vacuumed method for casting, many other folks use a centrifugal method. I could not tell you which is better because I learned on vacuum. The flask is placed into a special vacuum chamber and the molten metal is poured into the negative space. The result is a silver copy of the sprue tree you see above. Then the fun begins :) Actualy the whole thing is extremly fun. For those of you that have tried home black and white dark rooms, the experience is like watching your image show up in the developer, but a whole lot longer and a whole lot more exciting.

Well guys - considerations - the art of marketing got picked up as a front page story on Ning. Here is the link to the article. Many of the members got links to articles or work. Pretty fun. I am pretty sure Ning now has over 200,000 social forums, so pretty neat that we got picked up. I

I have been working on some findings of late. I added oxidized head pins and about to add some earring wires. While making these items I figured I might as well try my hand at the every popular earring loops, and I made some earrings that match my toggle clasp line. The best part about these is that I really honed in my Dark Tribal finish. Dark tribal finish is a combination of techniques and finishes starting with many areas left high polished to satin over printing the oxidized silver. This combination, is really only become available recently do to some new technology. The result is pretty stunning. Many of the items finished this way go from completely dark and oxidized looking to completely high gloss depending on viewing angle. It is pretty neat to be able to capture both dark finishes and shinny in the same body of work.

I did this work a while ago but finally got around to putting it on Etsy. I love being able to take something that is so old (800+ years old) and turning it back into art. The ultimate in recycling beauty. This goes way beyond vintage :) 700 - 900 year old Anasazi Native North American Indian Pottery shard in a Sterling Silver, and Fine Silver Mount. This one is probably in the 700 year old range. The potter shards with the finger impressions are the oldest. This piece can be worn anywhere, showers included and are free of charge. :) This is a legally attained piece of pottery. Size 1" diameter (25mm) This latter pottery shard was created by using finger nails of the artist. The indians used this technique for a while before they figured out how to paint on the clay. This one is thought to be at least 900 years old. Both of these have been listed on my etsy site now.