Custom Eternity Band

Here is a look at another custom piece. An eternity band I made using the lost wax cating method as a custom piece for a great customer of mine.

This process takes a long time, and she was very patient. :)

The lost wax method of jewelry creating begins with forming a piece of jewelry out of wax. It can either be carved out of hard wax or built up out of softer waxes. There are many methods as personal as there are people using this process.

Once the wax is made it is sprued on a casting tree and inserted into a flask that is filled with "investment". The investment is like a plaster and fills the space completely around the wax.

The flask is heated and the wax burns out leaving a hard investment mold with a void where the wax once was.

The metal alloy (silver, gold, etc) is then melted and poured into the flask to fill the void where the wax was.

Once the alloy is cool the investment is cleared away, the sprues are cut off and the piece can be sanded, polished & finished. The stone seats are cut & the gemstones are set.

That is the simplified version. Each step takes time.

With this ring after the piece was cast I had to do quite a bit of hand work to make the bamboo texture more pronounced.

I really wanted to keep it for myself, but I have this great customer I couldn't dissapoint.

This ring was set with white sapphires. I love white sapphires.