Can you post more photos of different spruing trees? I'm interested to compare the patterns to what has worked for me in the past. I've noticed the silver seems to roil / churn when heated to a certain point. It seems to get quite liquid at this point too. I've often wondered if you can overheat silver when casting it and what the issues might be. Perhaps more fire scale?
Zapins, I only have a few old sprues lying around to try to explain lost wax casting to people that come to my shop. There is really no right way to sprue as long as you are getting the results you need, I have had to come up with some pretty crazy sprue trees to get some parts cast. As far as overheating, I believe you can overheat metal, I know for a fact overheating brass and bronze will produce inferior results, overheating can cause fire scale as well as structural problems in the finished cast, like brittle metal. Getting a complete cast and getting a good cast are 2 different things. I never know how good the cast is until I am putting on the final finish, that seems to be where porosity and fire scale show up. Porosity can be ground out and filled and fire scale can be eliminated by sanding or stripping and bombing, but, if you don't need to, all the better. I remember when our entire building had to be evacuated because one of the bombing hoods had a leaky seal, it was funny to see a couple hundred bench workers wandering around the streets waiting to get back to work. If you are fortunate enough to be able to measure the temp of the metal you can make sure you are casting at an ideal temp. I do not have an immersion pyrometer small enough to fit into my jewelry crucibles so I have had to get beyond the melting temp and go by feel and the look of the metal to judge when to pour. Having never used one of those digital melting crucibles, I have no idea if they would be accurate. In general I try to sprue to make removal easier, to let the metal flow smoothly into the model and to keep my temperatures as low as possible. I still pray to the kiln gods when I have a critical cast.
Ok so I have finally finished this project. Thanks Jeff and everyone who tried to help. For anyone out there looking to make a bracelet that has no experience in jewelry making. I’m sure there are much better ways but, Here is a rundown of how I did it. PS Then Artcam Cnc a positive I used corian Mold Then many many attempts at casting. This is the one that worked. Hallelujah done.
And here i was thinking it was one of the star wars insignia and was looking it up on the net. Looks like it came out very well this go round.
Fantastic job. You should be the poster boy for stick-to it-ness. Mighty impressive, especially after speaking with you.
