Lost Wax Casting... my first expiriment... Part 1

Well... I have been working in a jewelry store for the past few months, selling, making jewelry, and helping with the website. The owner of the store does a lot of lost wax castings, and I was inspired to make one of my own.

I'll be going to a regional Burn this year, in North Carolina, so I decided to make a burning man themed pendant to give away as gifts there. Here are the steps......

Step 1: Come up with an idea.
I just sketched it out in pencil. It's super easy, because I thought for my first project I would start easy. Then I reduced it on the copier to 50%. Then I cut it out. Easy peasy, so far!

Step 2: Start carving the wax

OK... I cheated and didn't show my first attempt, which was much thicker wax and ended up looking like a rabid chipmunk chewed it. I then moved on to thinner wax. Much easier! I rubber cemented the image onto the wax, so I could get the details right. In general, I just used the scalpel until the very end when I had to smooth things out.

Step 3: The final wax... more or less
Pre-cleanup. I removed all the bits of paper, added a wax circle on top to put a jump ring through and smoothed it out a little. It's not totally smooth, but I can clean it up better once it is cast in silver.

Next step..... bring it to the casters. I'm doing that tomorrow. I will bring it Maine Precious Metal Casting in Brunswick, and they'll do the first one in silver. Here's their website...
http://mainepreciousmetalcasting.com/cfm/mpmc/

It's all coming together well. The final product will be cast in pewter as silver is about $16 an ounce right now, and since all of this is coming out of my own pocket, I can't really afford silver. I can't sell them, only gift them, so I have to keep the costs down.

More to come... once the next step is done.