Hello all, I am brand spanking new to this. I am wanting to cast a ring that specifically has a surface finish resembling the pictured ring. It is the first step in a project. Research led me to believe that the finish is done via sand casting. Outside of normal casting sand is there anything else you’re aware of that i would need to do? Wanting the holes and slight defects to give it the organic old school feel. Thank you for your help. Also it will be done in silver.
That was probably piss poor aluminum sand casting. We work hard not to have that happen. On a ring that is DISGUSTING! Can you imagine the nasty critters living on that persons finger? YUCK! That's not organic old school, just crappy craftsmanship.
I think that is probably one of the easiest finishes. Take a propane torch, melt soda can into a ring shape.... Polish it up, size it in your done.
Yeah, that would work Matt, but he want's it in silver. I suppose a small petrabond mold could be made and just dump in the silver from a foot above the hole. That should F it up pretty good. I'd rather see someone hand forge a silver band. Plenty of imperfections from hammer blows would look better. My wedding band is actually a SQUARE! Looks like a big gold nut on my finger. It's round on the inside naturally. I'm not sure if it was the thought of being married or the corners when I first got it, but it drove me nuts for the first month. Now I don't feel it at all. I get comments on it all the time. It's very unusual. The only thing, my brother in law hand made it with the one requirement; I NEVER ask him to resize it! Not an easy task with a SQUARE! You'd have to add gold to each side.
I did cold forging with titanium for my wedding band. I did mine instead of teak, tungsten carbide trapped. Here is a video of me doing the teak trapped. My tungsten carbide/titanium wedding band was a little bit more work... but it didn’t cost me anything!... but time... I do sell about a half dozen custom titanium rings each year. I am interested in casting aluminum bronze around them... but this is for another day..... this is probably one of the 10 reasons I joined this forum. The main reason is Troubleshooting problems! And given fair feedback. To be perfectly honest, your ring aspirations are a disaster. Unrepeatable disaster. With probably undesirable flaws. Maybe some will desire... but if appraised it will probably be next to nothing. My top ring has been appraised at almost $30,000, with a $7000 build.
The person selling it advertised it as silver vs aluminum. Once I finish the ring I’ll post so you can see the final concept, but the imperfections of the pour will play into it. with that said it seems my amateur status will play into it? Just pour from a greater height? Anything else?
Porosity can come from many things. Loose and floating around sand can cause surface issues. Shrinkage will also cause issues say from undersized sprues. One way for sure to get it is overheat the piss out of your silver. Also, don't flux your silver, you WANT gas forming during this pour.
If you really wanna get into rings, Go big. There is a lot of money to be made especially, if you’re an artist. If you are a 1 of a kind a thinker, I am a one of a kind artist. Designed and built the whole ring from wax just using CNC. I personally set this main Diamond with a jig grinder as this diamond diameter sets the diameter of the ring. Material is 99.7 platinum. It is a trap and hold with a Spring fit on the main diamond...And also somewhat the other clear diamonds in the primary ring. The black post diamonds are trapped in posts. In the secondary ring (wedding band) , they’re all trapped. Funny, This set is my brides weekend without the rings. They are being polished in the shop.
I personally think High end rings need to be art to fetch the top dollar. Metal design trapping the big $ goods. Just for fun here’s $100 worth of sawdust levelling out the posts.
Not anymore it's not. Platinum took a major nose dive. Funny Rhodium went through the roof! The two move in opposite directions. The demand for platinum died and Rhodium which is mined next to it became scarce as all hell and is worth 10X what platinum is. Rhodium makes platinum look like POT METAL! We sell very little platinum stuff in the shop anymore. (Which is good because that stuff isn't easy to cast in a common shop like gold and silver is) People have returned to yellow gold. Depends on what the karTRASHians are wearing I guess? TO make things even more whacked out, young people do not buy jewelry like they once did. They seldom get married and are choosing to piss money away on experiences.. My wife has gone through a couple of upgrades through the years and the original ring I built for her is long gone. I found her an amazing solitaire last year in a plain band and just picked up this eternity band for our 20th. I gotta get to work on putting this together in a cathedral type setting. Just busy with a bunch of other stuff now. Damn the poor girl needs some lotion on those fingers. She drys out in winter because of the heat.
Welcome Torso, Post number 7 above by Jason is a good guess as to how something like that is done. Pouring from a greater height was probably sarcasm. The pour was probably done exactly the opposite way a "quality" pour is done: overheated, and as sloppy as possible. I have zero experience with silver but overheated and hydrogen saturated aluminum looks exactly like the picture. That surface finish usually causes frustration, but hey, to each his own. My remelt bucket has a fair amount of that in it. Pete
