My Lost Wax Process

To be honest, before starting on my jewelry making journey, I'm not sure how I thought jewelry was made. I guess in my mind I had lumped it in with anything else that's manufactured, in a factory somewhere using technology I wasn't familiar with. Slowly I learned more and more as I took some silversmithing courses around town whenever I got a chance. But it wasn't until I was introduced to the lost wax process that I realized not only could I be a goldsmith, I could also be a sculptor of sorts when I made jewelry. 

So what is the lost wax process? It all starts with a plain ol' slab of wax. I pick one with the right dimensions for the design I have in mind and then I begin marking the design out onto the wax. At this stage I have to make sure that I've done plenty of planning to ensure I get the best results. Marking the wax means that not only have I thought about the specific measurements of the design, but I've also visualized it from all angles to ensure cohesiveness and structural integrity.

Once I've marked the wax, I get to carving! The majority of this phase means only carving away the excess wax that isn't needed in the design but sometimes some melted wax is added as well, depending on the design. If there is a gemstone involved, I always carve the setting first because I want to make sure there is enough structural integrity to hold the gemstone in place. Generally, this phase takes the majority of my time and I love it! It's an extremely meditative process and I love getting into the flow of it. 

After I'm done carving and making sure the wax piece looks as perfect as I can make it, I take it to a casting house for the piece to be cast into metal. A mold of the wax piece is made and the wax is melted out, that's why it's called the "lost wax" process. Then molten metal is poured into the mold and once it hardens, the casting is done! (It's worth mentioning that this process is actually quite complex but since I don't do the casting in-house, I filtered down to the essentials to get the point across.) When I get the metal piece back, a lot of cleaning, polishing, and stone setting work is done before it's ready for wearing. 

As I mentioned earlier, my favourite part of the lost wax method is hand carving the wax piece because of how meditative and peaceful a process it is. But I also love that in this method of jewelry making, a minimal amount of metal is wasted because it's only what's needed for the casting. This also means I can choose what casting house I want to work with and in my case, one that offers recycled precious metals. Additionally, it allows me to experiment to my heart's content because I'm able to make as many iterations of my design as I want until I'm happy, again, without wasting metal. (I'll be talking about my sourcing in future posts.) 

Hand carving wax is becoming a bit of an ancient art form with the invention of 3D printing, which I do think has its place in the industry but more about that later. But I think this process is worth keeping around because it makes for super unique jewelry fully hand made with a lot of love put into each piece. 

I love talking about my jewelry making process and sharing the joys of it with others. Let me know if you have any questions and if there's any particular parts of making that you would like to learn more about.