How To Cast A Silver Ring Everything You Wanted To Know About Delft Clay/Sand Casting For Jewellers

in this film we're going to be looking at sand casting or Delft clay casting whatever you want to call it and we're going to be attempting to cast this gorgeous gorgeous heavy dissection massive silver ring my name is Andrew berry and welcome to act the benches YouTube channel a couple years ago I did a film on Delft clay casting I was cast in some gold balls some matching gold balls for a talked bangle and I did it really quick I did it with a small little vlogging camera it was a bit tongue-in-cheek II was a bit silly just that it just very quick one afternoon and it has this an amazing amazing response the viewing figures have gone through the roof with it so I thought I produce a proper film and also they were a cry for comment saying or a stupid film keep the camera steady it was rubbish we filmed and I totally know that it was half-hearted wasn't it it was a tongue-in-cheek quick film but in this film they're gonna be showing you how to cast this gorgeous gorgeous heavy silver ring this is a hollow ring and the construction technique on this is pretty pretty hard Brian I couldn't show you how we're going to use Delft clay but we're not actually gonna use del clay we're gonna have I'm gonna be using some petrol bond which is similar to Delft clay like the the sand with the oil in it's a little bit more coarse a little bit more grainy I don't normally tend to use it because it is quite grainy and you have to compact it a lot harder than Delft clay so my clay of choice personally is Delft clay although I don't have any left I'm just playing around with this petrol bond so let's get started sand cast in Delft clay casting whatever you want to call it you need some containers to start off with these are the aluminium rings that come with the Delft clay set registration marks on the side here and they're due as you pour the metal in through the top these are another set of rings here this is from a company I will actually put the description and the link down in the box down below so you can buy these these are a side entry they're pretty good as well nice and deep a little bit better with the side entry we've also got massive absolutely humongous size rings here again he's a bit stiff to open up but these have the side entry holes as well you can get rectangular frames you can even make up your own frames you don't you need these just need the actual clay we're gonna be using these side entry rings because I think for this particular instance it's gonna be a lot easier because when the ring goes in the sand it's always nice to have the metal the flows just flows through the mold without having to stop and turn 90 degrees now if we had this particular ring in these particular molds which the entry is through the top here the metal has to go in as soon as it goes in it has to turn and flow into the ring so it's lost its momentum gravity isn't pulling the silver down it happens to stop and then it relies upon the weight of the silver that's going into the mold to push and fill up the mold all this won't come account parent as I go through it but if we have these side entry mold like this the ring is going to be this way up the Subaru's really cannot be coming down in this direction and the silver is going to be carrying on down because gravity is pulling it down and also you're pouring it down and it's gonna fill up the ring a lot easier you're gonna get far more successful casts this way this way this way using the side entry modes than these although how you've used these for years and years and years and years but these a little bit better when it comes to doing rings because it you have a tendency because it's the the metal comes away from the crucible it starts to cool and then it goes through the mold the mold is cool because you can't really heat up the sand the metals gonna start to cool so you have to get the silver into the mold as fast as possible if it has to stop or two 90-degree corners it's gonna slow down it's going to start to cool and you won't get successful cast the metal would not solidify by the time it gets popped halfway or three-quarters of the way and you get a complete ring of silver so that is why I would always tend to use these as I said links in the description to these the company also sells petrol bond as well which is what I'm gonna be using today it's for me it's okay I find it doesn't give personally the most fine definition that you would if you actually used elf clay the petrol bond is far far cheaper than the Delft clay Dov Clare think is perhaps even twice the price but for me I really do love the Delft clay because the texture is so so fine anyway enough talking let's get on with what I should be doing this is the petrol bond it's like a fine sand like a brick dust sand it's a little bit oily it's a sort of ways you squeeze it it stays exactly where it is and it has good properties because you can hammer it you can force things into it you can shape things you do an awful lot with it you can carve it and shape it and when the metal goes into it although the metal will actually burn the sand it'll still hold its shape and definition until the metal hit metal has solidified and it's an awesome awesome method of casting rings like this or any sort of object like this if you want to cast shells perfect but you must make sure that you have no undercuts or no holes going through horizontally because the metal won't flow because you can't get a successful cast so if you are doing it all Charles little little conical spiral shells always fill in the shell with a little bit of plasticine a little bit of Wax so the shell can go in and out of the mould nice and easy perhaps I'll leave into a film on that a little bit later on in the year alright then so we are going to get all this out on our surface a nice surface that you could start to work on make sure it isn't like a natural wood surface because as this is oily at the stick to the wood this is a bit of melamine faced wood so it's nice and smooth I've used this for the last close to 30 years this a little bit of a tray out so you love it so first of all what we got to do is make a nice fine fine texture ruler Delft clay whatever you want Petra bonds I'm sure there was some other manufacturers out there and we literally just chopped it nice and fine I'm gonna bring that camera in now so you can really see closer what I'm doing now I just simply talked to myself as the camera records - I got this close-up camera by the side of me here and this will do some nice close-ups as well from a different angle so you can see exactly what is going on we're gonna be using silver it's very hard to judge how much silver you're going to need especially if it's something like this year that's hollow if it was a solid piece I could put this on the scales and weigh it and then work on how much silver I'm going to need ideally you're gonna need is enough to fill up the mold to flip this ring and a little bit more I've got something here that we've used I think this was cuttlefish I think you can see this was the sprue that was left on top the excess always nice to have a lot of extra extra silver excess silver forcing the metal down as a course don't just try and get away with exactly that amount because hardly hardly ever work but this is hollow so how do I work out how much silver I need for this particular ring we can't weigh it so what we would simply do is get perhaps something like a test tube or a very very narrow cylindrical tube glass tube okay fill it up with water put the ring in it's called displacement is what Archimedes found when he got into the bath as he went in the water came up and I think is actually what happens for this we put this into the water first of all we mark the level of the water put this into the water mark the level where it comes to take this out the water returns to its normal level then you get your little bits of silver you add it into the jar into the test tube until the water level comes up to the level that it was when you have the ring in place and that's exactly the amount of silver that you need to fill that mold but we need a good well at least that weight again on top just so you have that way to push it down to the mold to ensure that it fills it and you have no gaps and there's me get a nice nice fantastic mold anyway let's get cracking we want to ensure we get a nice fine texture you don't have to do the whole lot of sand just make sure you get a decent amount and I'm not worried about this but mount down there make sure you get a nice decent amount so you've got a male and a female part of mold this is the male this is the female this is the male part that will locate into the female like that with this particular mold you've got this little recess as this little key that it'll lock together it is important that the mold goes back in exactly the same place every single time with these Delft clay rings you've got little marks that we would just move those into position to get it right so this is what we're gonna be using I would always use the male mold first some people put it with the male part at the top never do that always turn it upside down because you're going to get a better finish on this area here move the clay to one side put the male part facing downwards and just fill up push the sand in fill it up until it comes a little bit higher than the ring like that then get a metal smithing hammer and start to hammer it down now the more you hammer it down the more you can press the sand the better the texture and the final of the texture and the finer the detail on the piece will be as you can see it goes down because being compressed so add a little bit more sand and once you compacted it take the ruler and bring the ruler across and there we've got one half of our mold when we turn it over we've got this gorgeous beautiful texture it's not even a texture of this beautiful beautiful finish on that one side there right now we need to get a little bit of talcum powder on here or a little bit of cornstarch and this is to stop the mold from sticking together let me put the mold together so that's the talcum powder but that over like that get the ring now this is where we're going to be pouring the metal into there's not much point trying to put the ring right up towards the top like that there bring it down - you gonna have to have enough for a nice little pour and child straight into the ring it's roughly round about halfway there now get some things you can do this with wax you can make wax rings and so forth so it is important that you push this down nice and even I always use the ruler and we can push this down halfway and you just come down here like that if you want to you can always come along to push the sand down close to the mold just to make sure that it's all nicely compacted right up to the edge of the ring damn it for there we go perfect add a bit more talc and it gets a bit more talc on the model as well lovely and now we need to do the exactly the same now with this half so get the mold put it together get the ends to come together make sure that the little section by here is nicely located and that's what we've got fill up the mold again with some more sand and again keep hammering it's nice and hard again keep a dip and when it comes over there keep going draw a flat surface across and that's what we've got set the way there we go so that's what are we got this is our mold the key is looking good there and see we're going to be pouring it now we need to open up the mold should be able to just pull it apart ever so gently just like that but put it straight don't try and twist it pull it too straight out and there's our ring that we've got in here now we need to get a little bit of a sharp blade just to scoop out the area I'm using my ruler here you don't need anything too technical for this ruler out and you can see on this one here that you can see how it is quite open the texture because we haven't hammered it really really hard you can see how open the texture is this is what I prefer to use Delft clay so this is where we're going to be pouring our metal into gorgeous now we are simply going to make a little channel so we need to get the silver in here and into the mold as fast as possible let's just take away a little bit of a channel that's coming directly into the mold remove any excess make sure you get a nice smooth transition from there right into the mold I would always try and make a nice large sprue it's going to be easier for you because if this works the first time absolutely brilliant if you go do this again because your sprue is too small then you've learned to do this blue bigger for next time at committing like that I'm just gonna leave this ring in place by here I'm just using my file just to remove there we go like that because we have to get a lot of silver into this mold fast before the silver actually starts to solidify need to remove the mold remove the master like that so there's our mold on there make sure now that you've got rid of all of the excess sands could be don't want any sand entering the mold of the sand goes into the mold you will find that you get little pits in the mold and that is no good okay that's what we've got next we want to get some air holes into the outside of this what you're gonna find is when the silver comes into the mold here this is full of air the air has to escape the air can't escape it's going to stop the silver from entering so get a small little burr or small little cocktail stick something like that and just make some holes around the outside and this is going to be for the air to be released like that perfect then we can just get a pair of tweezers in this case or anything just to drag Airlines now out to those holes so that now is where the air is going to come out from again make sure there's no excess sand anywhere make sure that the silver can go into the mold absolutely gorgeously that's looking good that's looking good now this is the reason why we've got the locating marks here so we can put these back exactly where the ring came from put it back together just like that and that now is our pouring hole push them all together nice and tight and this is now where we're going to pour our silver and just remove some of that excess sand the be up okay these are the air holes on this side and that now is where we're going to pour our silver you can see into the mold you can actually see where the silver is going to go right let's go into our little area heat proof area unless melt the silver down so this is a great way of getting rid of all your little bits of oddments of silver that you may have lying around if you're a jeweler you should have lots of little bits and pieces that you've cut off jobs and that sort of thing you can make up there's quite a bit by then I can use that bit there in this and all bits or ring and that sort of thing and even come down and melt this whole bit of sprue that was in there at some stage okay let's melt this down I'm using a a sievert torches the gas just simple propane torch I'm gonna melt all this down let's move out to one side little pieces will start to melt down nice and quick and easy it's the larger pieces they take that little bit longer did you see how hold looks a nice successful cast we've got on the side here we got a little bit of smoke just coming out looks like it went in and we got a nice little bit of a sprue head there as well so the smoke that you can see coming up from the mold is where the metal is in contact with the sand the sand has a bit of oil in it to hold it all together that's the oil burning off we're going to wait for that to cool down some people say you can put it in some water to help it cool down I don't normally tend to like to do that I try and keep the sand nice and drive possible but people say you can do that I don't so we're going to give this 10-15 minutes wait for it to cool down and open it up and let's see then what that ring is gonna look like we need to open this up now just the first time I haven't looked at this is you can see the mold is still intact and I'm expecting the surface to be slightly rough because it's petra bond it's not Delft clay but to show you what we've got looking good you got the sprue nice large sprue nice amount of silver on the top as you can see the silvers traveling this direction it's gone down around it's filled the mold up quite nicely we've got a little bit of flash in as you can just see on the outside fine no worries at all and easily file that off what we need to do now or at some point is all this black you can see where the metal has been in contact with the sand that we have to scrape off so all the black areas here we scrape off until we get back to fresh and we throw that this black crumbly powdery sand away we keep the rest it's that easy here is the ring looking good let's push the sand out from the inside so all this black we throw away we keep all the rest but that to one side and that's all right that's what we've got now it is a simple but quite time-consuming job now I've cutting off the sprue filing it and getting the ring into some sort of shape and condition as the original so we're going to cut let me just follow the contours of the ring and the advantage of it you can now reuse that sprue for another job what you'll find is that there's normally a little bit of shrinkage so this ring will be a fraction smaller than the original so if you do need to make the ring to fit you you need to make the original slightly larger or do a bit more filing when it comes to sorting out the cast ring but this is a great way to reproduce nice simple simple shapes so let's go over the ring as you can see we've got on the inside we got those sort of mould lines on the inside that we can easily file off we've got these little areas who can easily file off and we've got a really really good shape obviously the sprue we need to sort out as well just a file into shape nice straightforward simple matter of filing shaping the ring to bring it back into a nice smooth even wide [Music] [Music] looking absolutely gorgeous bright shiny CEO studio lights around an absolute gorgeous so there's the original but we used there's our copy it is so likely narrower it's gonna be slightly smaller back and go on my finger quite nicely this a little bit on the tight side so yes you do have to allow for a little bit of shrinkage when it comes to producing these rings but as you can see gorgeous gorgeous heavy ring this was a hollow ring originally this now is a nice gorgeous solid band and I think it's an absolute fabulous way of reproducing heavy pair of rings don't forget please subscribe if you haven't done so already smash that little bell icon if that is something that into to notified when films go live on our YouTube channel forget please give this films a thumbs up if you liked it and share it with your friends sand casting del clay casting brilliant brilliant type of kasev it's still in its infancy it's been going around for use this technique has been sort of brought over from the engineering business the engineering sector and they were left to do this type of casting and a little small little workshop as we've got here or even small-scale on manufacturing as well anyway enough said I could talk for hours as you must probably can tell leave some comments in the box down below I'd love you to read everyone ask me some questions more than happy to answer them in the meantime mines Andrew Barry for the benches YouTube channel I'll see you next time bye bye [Music]

Channel: Andrew Berry

Views: 123,591

Keywords: andrew berry, making your own jewelry, making jewellery, at the bench, andrew berry jewellery, making jewellery for beginners, jewelry making, how to make jewelry, how to, how to make, how to start making your own jewelry, wedding ring, wedding band, sand casting, sand casting jewelry, sand casting silver, sand casting process, silver casting, delft clay, #jewellerymaking, ring making, making rings, how to size a ring, making a silver ring, silver ring

Id: gUeS_Yio3Xg

Length: 28min 7sec (1687 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 16 2019