Wednesday, September 11, 2013

New Casting Back

Late last month I got some castings back from another casting house I tried- made a pair of earrings today with one pair!
The above earrings look great; and quick to make- I soldered on an earwire, cleaned up and oxidized the earrings, cleaned them again to remove the oxidation from the cast granules, then set the stones- amazing Ethiopian opals. My problem is that I want to set opals in everything... I think the other pair I have of these will contain labradorites instead. Most people like those. We'll see. I built up a collection of calibrated stones for these castings, and I have to use up some of them that ARE NOT opals!




Here's how they looked- the top pieces are the originals, the bottom pieces are back from the caster (with sprue removed) and the middle set was after I cleaned them up a bit. I like that the originals came back usable. The last originals I got back from another casting house were not- they had a layer of silicone that I couldn't even burn off. I can make my originals into pendants!

I still have some bezels to make in order to make the other style of earrings. But I am looking forward to having them be quick, and having a sudden burst in inventory, especially with the holiday season coming up! I may have to order more!

5 comments:

  1. Are these Argentium or regular sterling?

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  2. They look lovely and I agree the opals are a bit delicious!

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  3. Fantastic Dana! You won't believe this but I woke up thinking about you and your granulation/casting this morning! Really! And here you are. . . I was ruminating about casting and granulation and BlueFuse. I was wondering if you use BlueFuse and if so, how you like it.

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  4. Thanks all! The original model was Argentium.. Victoria- with Argentium you don't have to use BlueFuse! You use diluted flux and heat. Argentium has a window where it exists in a bit of a 'gel' state before melting- it's very forgiving. These were cast in sterling silver, though. Glad you're thinking about me, Victoria!! LOL

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