Casting Grain & Computers

I'm going to keep this short and sweet, because the process that I used to cast the key chain is the same as the one that I used to cast the butterfly signet ring. However, I did get a good picture right after the cast was taken out of the mold. I also took a picture comparing the 3D print to the finished cast. There are some small flaws, but I am overall very happy with it.

Alrighty, onward to the next cast object! Here I stray (very briefly) from rings. I wanted to make this key chain for an important mentor who helped me achieve the skill set that lead to the making of everything I post in this blog. Its very simple in design, your standard circular key chain with the logo and team number of the robotics team I was a part of in high school. The first print, as you can see, did not go so well. I tried to print it on a MakerBot at my school, and had I been able to set it up on the printer myself, it might have turned out ok, but alas, that is against the policy. Oh well, its probably there for a good reason. The second print was done in a higher end printer, so the numbers actually turned out. It was admittedly at the cost of the lettering in the logo, but I was on a time crunch, and thinking back, I'm not sure that they would have turned up in the cast anyways.

Making jewelry can get really expensive and I am but a broke college student, so we take a break from your regularly scheduled programming to take a look at a significantly different project than the last. I was going to my local convention as Taako from The Adventure Zone, and I needed a Bureau of Balance bracer of course. I might make another post in the future detailing the making of this further, so if you would like that, please let me know! For now, though, here's the condensed version. I used a leather bracer pattern that I found online somewhere to figure out the general shape and dimension of the bracer. I then added the Bureau of Balance symbol and some (purely aesthetic) lacing holes. Then, being a college student in a dorm, took the flat 3D print and a disposable baking tin to my Keurig and filled the tin with hot water and set the print in it. Having laid a thin washcloth on my arm, I then placed the now bendable print on my arm and molded it to the shape of my arm. Ri...

And here we have it! The finished product! I was incredibly (and still am if I'm being honest) proud of myself. I'm going to be completely honest right now, the reason that I decided to 3D print the ring in the first place was because it's within my comfort zone. At this point in time, I was not new to 3D printing, but I was incredibly new to jewelry making and saw this daunting project and was like, hey, I can 3D print this and get it to look exactly how I want through that. I'm still on the fence about this decision, because hey, it's always good to learn new skills, and I'm always looking to learn. However, I can honestly say that through 3D printing my jewelry casts, I have learned more about 3D printing than I would have otherwise. Sorry for the rambling, back to the ring itself! In the end, it end up being able to make a wax impression! It was more than I could've hoped for and I happily wear it every day! (I really need to find a copper sealer, the co...

Almost done! After the ring was cast, it had an unsightly little blob as you can see in the first image. This was from the funnel of the flask when the metal was poured. I used my jeweler's saw to saw it off. It was then annealed and shaped and sized into a ring shape using a ring mandrel. It was at this point that I realized that I had accidentally sized it wrong, and had to get a bit of copper and solder it to the ring in order to make the ring the desired size. If I had left the ring the size that it was when I cast it, it would have only been able to fit a small child.