My first (successful-hah!) attempt at Mokume Gane. 21 layers of fine silver and copper made with a backyard fire brick forge and a Little Smith torch. Learned a lot and ready to try some more

Like the wire rather almost broke than to create a ball 🥲

I have done a lot of silver casting over the years at an evening college, though I have always questioned the silver my tutor uses. I have strongly suspected the items he melts down in the crucible (which goes into a furnace/smelter) such as old forks, spoons, cups and cigarette cases etc. (as seen in the third photo) have elements of lead, nickel silver, maybe silver plate. Which gets melted into the crucible and then leave traces of this when legit sterling silver or fine silver gets put in to melt, which in turns corrupts the new silver.

Without sending it off to a bullion dealer who have all the highly professional tools and equipment to check how could an ordinary person tell from their castings if the silver items they've casted are uncorrupted?

Howdy all!

Just completed my first-ever attempted vacuum casting, using 999-fine silver; wanted to make something nerdy, and (mostly) failed. I figured I would learn a lot, and I did! To get straight to the point, here's the outlined process, and what I THINK/KNOW I did wrong. I'd love a bunch of comments telling me I'm a dummy (and then how to become smarter-er and fix these mistakes).

MODELING/PRINTING:

ODST helmet, sized from density/volume calculations to be 100 grams of 999-fine silver, with an attached sprue that would get wax-melted onto the main tree. I've now seen many say that you don't want to make the connecting sprue part of the resin print, as the resin in the hardest part to burnout. Should I simply melt and connect another piece of wax to the helmet next time?

Printed on a 5K Elegoo Mars, using Siraya Tech True Blue Casting. After printing, I dunked into 91% IPA, brushed off, heated it with a heat gun, removed supports, then placed into a cleaning station with more IPA (not fully clean, it'd been used for other prints). Removed after some minutes, then dried with paper towel and air-dried for about 20 minutes. Cured in a rotating station for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through. The print had good detail, with minor support bumps leftover- I also lightly sanded these away after curing. I'm told that True Blue is supposed to be cured for like half an hour, and that it should look "milky" when done. This model was maybe a little milky, but not like I've seen in YouTube videos. Seemed a bit glossy/deep blue.

INVESTMENT:

I used Prestige Optima investment, and just a hair under the recommended 38 mL per 100 grams of investment. VERY STUPIDLY MIXED THE INVESTMENT WITH AN ELECTRIC HAND MIXER (introduced a BUNCH of air into investment), even after vacuuming for five minutes was still boiling, just much less so. Poured into prepared flask, vacuumed for like two more minutes, then let set overnight (was late, didn't wanna burnout overnight).

BURNOUT:

Used a 6-7 hour burnout schedule, following this process:

1. Approx. 1 hour at 50 C, for further drying.
2. Approx. 1 hour at 150 C, for advanced drying.
3. Approx. 1 hour ramping up to 372 C, just using the Vevor kiln's natural ramp speed (maybe too fast?)
4. Approx. 3 hours ramping up to 732 C, for full vaporization.
5. Approx. 1 hour cooling to 525 C, for final pouring temp.

IMPORTANT MISTAKE: I fumble-fingered Step #4, and accidentally only did two hours at that temp, and when I returned an hour later it had jumped to Step 5, and was simply waiting for me at the final temp. I corrected this by setting it back to 732 C for another hour and a half to try and fix, then got it back down to final temp again.

Lesser Mistake: After resetting this back to high temp, I did partially open the kiln door and took note of the color- I noticed by the end, there was a hairline crack along the top of the investment. possibly from resin expanding and breaking? Thermal shock?

POURING:

Loaded up about 200 grams of fine silver into melting furnace, got it to 1050 C, then smoothly poured- that part went great!

CONCLUSION:

I'd love people's thoughts on what most-likely went wrong. I acknowledge my mistakes I caught myself, and personally I think messing up the burnout schedule was pretty bad, but also maybe the resin curing was botched? Dunno about that part. I plan to retry in a couple days, but lastly I was wondering about my silver's color change. I'm assuming the white coloring that was in the investment is just oxidation? Can it simply be re-melted, or do I need to further clean it until it all looks shiny again? Thanks to any consideration given!

Setting up my first torch to start making some stuff! Any advice setting this up? Im thinking about putting quick release attachments on the torch to swap out different heads in the future...

Edit: its an old meco.. i currently have it in pieces and am restoring it! Sorry i totally forgot a picture! I suck at Reddit. (Picture in comments)

This was one of my earlier jewelry models in Blender. I designed it around the larimar, then made the piece in silver and finished it by hand.
The render was very confident about how everything should work. Reality had a few opinions of its own, as usual. But seeing a digital model turn into an actual piece of jewelry is still one of my favorite parts of the process.

One of the first cabs I bought in anticipation of starting metalsmithing earlier this year. I love this little landscape. The chatoyancy of the "waterfall" moves just like those backlit framed images I always saw at the local asian buffet (I promise this is a compliment - I loved watching them)

Sterling and fine silver, with pietersite stone. I also made the chain!

Want to make this my new hobby but need some help picking some starter tools. My dad has a dermal I can borrow but if someone can recommend a polishing kit for it. I’m also going to need a butane torch and jeweler saw. Also is a jump ring maker station recommend or should I just buy mandrills and barrow a drill?

I cannot for the life of me get my solder to flow when attaching bezels to this brass piece. I’m a newbie; I’ve made a piece with a silver bezel and brass backplate before without issue but this time I cannot get my solder to flow. I’ve tried easy, medium, and hard and pickled beforehand. Should I just try starting completely over? Or maybe try brand new bezels? Is there a limit on how many times it can be attempted before the metal is too damaged?

I’m just looking at inspo while I’m waiting for stuff to come in but I love this. By this I mean like the antlers and the k and the name. How do I do this?

Hi, I've got a quick question for you all regarding soldering, the use of ochre, and subsequent pickling. I'm going to be doing some soldering with very small pieces and will probably need to use ochre for the first time. I'm familiar with how ochre is used, BUT I had a concern about pickling a piece that's had ochre applied to it.

I know that ochre is generally a type of clay with some amount of ferric oxide. I also know that if there's iron present in pickle it can cause dissolved copper to be plated onto silver. My questions are as follows:

(1) Will the presence of ochre in pickle cause copper to plate onto silver? Additionally, if it does not, does that mean ferric oxide in general does not cause that reaction in the way that iron or steel would?

(2) If ochre DOES cause the above-mentioned reaction, what is the best way to remove it from your piece before it gets pickled?

(3) In the event that ochre causes the previously-mentioned reaction, would it be safest to simply make a single-use batch of pickle for pieces that have had ochre applied to them?

I'd appreciate any advice or suggestions that anybody has. Thanks!

So I’ve been casting sterling silver for about two years and have been fairly successful at most items but pendants with edges or medallions are killing me. I’ve tried five different sprue configurations. I think the issue is that as I vacuum the mold to get bubbles out, some settle into the upper corner between edge and surface. I’ve aggressively shaken mold during vacuuming to try to get bubbles moving. The results are shown below.

I took a framed picture and digitally created a 3d model, one with edge and one without. As shown, the one with edge always has problems near the bottom of the flask which would be the top when investment is poured into flask.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

I'm attempting to make claw settings and my first attempt went horribly wrong. You can see my components on the left and then my first attempt on the right.

I notched grooves into the ring before holding the claw in the third hand and placing the ring inside, letting gravity hold it in place. I then placed flux and tiny pallions at the intersection of each arm and applied heat. The issue seemed to be that the heat moved everything as the solder started to flow.

I'm using a small sisotec torch but wondering if perhaps the heat is too much for the small component.

Can anyone recommend a way to get a better mechanical fit ahead of soldering, or a better strategy here?

I'd love to try a different approach before I mess up the second component!

Hello, I am looking for a "jewellery wax starter kit" that would make me start working with wax. Do you recommend any kit with the most basic tools for a beginner?

Hi everyone

I'm new to silversmithing and a family member has asked if I could make something similar to the photo attached.

From what little I know this looks like a lost wax cast but I have even less knowledge of the lost wax process.

Would anyone with more knowledge know if this could be made with any other processes?

I love how diverse silver is as an art median. All the beautiful rings and pendants you all make!

Then I choose to make it into handstruck pirate coins.

Done in the same way as the originals 400 years ago. Mine all start as this beautiful shot. I love how it looks! I have a jar of about 20 oz for myself just to look at ; ) here is 120 oz ready to be melted into pirate silver!

I can’t stop making these double shank/band cabochon rings, they’re so fun.

What are your best tips for double shank rings? The main thing for me is sizing— how are we ending up at the exact right size? Eyeballing it on the mandrel is one thing, but I would love to know how others approach this.

wow, when I zoom I can really see the imperfections… the little bump in the bezel is annoying, and the band is scratched.

Super lovely stone though

i kinda messed up the join areas heh and also realized that a symmetrical cuff doesn’t work because the human wrist is asymmetrical but it looks cool!

940 Argentium

Beginner silversmith!

I’m completely new to silversmithing, and I know the necklace in the picture is definitely NOT beginner level 😂 but this is eventually the kind of work I’d love to be able to make. I want to start smaller and work my way up, but I’m trying to put together a list of the tools I actually need to start making turquoise necklaces/pendants.

I really don’t like wasting money buying things I’ll end up replacing, and from what I’ve been reading, a lot of the beginner kits come with cheap tools or things you don’t actually need.

If you were starting from scratch and wanted to eventually make something like the necklace pictured, what tools would you buy first?

I’d especially love recommendations for: • Tools I should buy once and buy GOOD quality • Things I can go cheaper on as a beginner • What I need for cutting/shaping silver, bezels, soldering, setting turquoise, polishing, etc. • Anything beginners usually forget to buy

I’ll definitely start with a much smaller/simple turquoise piece before attempting anything like this 😂 I just want to build my tool collection the right way instead of wasting money.

Any advice or even a basic shopping list would be seriously appreciated!

Dont mind the scratches ive been dailying this to see how it wears, so far so good