Can a cast piece match handmade?

Jewelry Discussion
21

When I was in High School in the 1970s spoon rings were a fad. The
mother of a friend of mine thought that the rings I showed her, that
I had made, must be spoon rings, made of silver spoon handles. They
were not. They were fabricated and chased. The woman was absolutely
delighted that I could make such beautiful spoon rings all by myself.
She insisted on showing my “spoon rings” to her friends.

Other people in the 1970s were all into this cult of the handmade. I
am sure many of you remember that and some may even still be true
believers. The perception of what is a better way to make something
or making something in a way that the process adds perceived value is
a funny business. To my friend’s mother it was very cool that I could
make spoon rings. To most of the people who understood how I really
worked it was very cool that I could make what I did by hand. Now it
seems more likely that the what is being made and how well it is
designed is a bigger factor than it was when handmade was so
earnestly sought.

I now do a lot of casting. There are things I cast that I would
never bother to fabricate or carve. Often I will fabricate a piece in
silver or other materials to mold and cast in gold. I could fabricate
in gold and sometimes do, but for a variety or reasons it is often
seems like a better idea to cast. Much of my work is hand fabricated
but includes elements that are cast in multiples. Some of my work is
cast into hand carved molds. Casting is a craft and there are many
fine craftsmen who make wonderful creations without actually doing
their own casting, but by jobbing it out. And then there are those
who are horrified that they could be so dishonest as to claim to have
made something in this way.

When the Arts and Crafts Movement started exulting the handmade more
than a century ago, what they were really trying for was empowering
the individual’s creative spirit and preserving the sense of pride,
skill and fun that comes with making beautiful things. For some
craftsmen and critics this morphed into a very intellectual and
idealistic quest for a “handmade” purity. Unfortunately this missed
the point of another major goal of the Arts and Crafts Movement that
was that craft-workers should be able to earn a decent living income
from the practice of their art. One of the most ridiculous examples
of this is Harris Tweed, that cannot legally be made on a motorized
loom. The weavers do everything else they can to make their job less
toilsome while they pedal their looms like bicycles, serving the
ideological masters of a previous generation.

Any method of working has its strengths and weaknesses. Casting has
limits, but cost is also a limit. I would not put down casting just
because something handmade might be better(sometimes)at ten times the
cost. There was a time in living memory when the perceived difference
meant something to a portion of the public. I think now the
difference means a lot less and fewer people are willing to pay for
the difference.

Stephen Walker

22

This is a topic that has been discussed for many years. I was told
37 years ago when I was first started learning metalsmithing that if
a piece can be made by hand it would be the best way to create it
since it will give the sharpest detail but not all piece can be
created by hand. Take a look at some of the pieces I make and see if
they can be created by hand fabrication. I would doubt it. The simple
answer is to choose the method that best suites the piece.

Greg DeMark

23

I think that casting, as a term, would benefit from some
illumination.

I use the process in a “studio-centric” way: as a means of producing
something that can really only be (or is best) cast. Things like
organic elements that are part of a larger piece. Or if I want a
seamless band (and can’t weld). Or maybe certain volumetric,
curvilinears.

So casting in that case is simply part of the conversation.

On the other hand, when I was a metalsmithing cub-scout, I produced
a line of earrings, cuffs, pendants and rings that were cast. Some of
this line was fabricated first and then rubber molds made of the
masters from which castings were made. The castings required
significant handwork. Some were even cast in sections and then
fabricated and finished.

In this sense, I see the casting product as hand made.

In the industrial-centric sense, where the same castings are mass
finished etc. The meaning is a bit different.

I think that any disagreement lies in the way that we are speaking
or thinking. I think that perhaps, you are coming from the legal
side, interpreting the letter of the law. I am coming from the less
hard edged, connotative side. It’s the way I think :slight_smile:

Take care, Andy

24

Charles,

I have been casting for close to 40 years both for my self and for
others while working as a production manager in a casting job shop. I
am familiar with and have done a small amount of foundry work.
Currently I use CAD/CAM to produce models both grown and milled that
I then have cast in a variety of metals. I do not make the assertion
that a casting is a degraded copy of the model lightly. As I said it
usually produces a part that is good enough for the purposes of the
designer but it is never an exact duplicate of the model. If casting
produced an exact copy of the original then there would be no need
for all the finishing operations required on a cast part. On an
industrial scale the most sophisticated casting processes produce
what is considered a near net shape article meaning that they
require further machine operations to produce useable parts. If they
were a perfect copy you would be able to make net shape articles that
had no further need of additional processing.

Regards,

James Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts

25 
Can a cast piece match handmade

That is easy to answer. Related to design - yes, of course, it can.
Related to quality - no never, it can’t.

Does an average customer see the difference in quality? No, he
doesn’t. He only note the different fee - but only, if there are two,
optical equal pieces. What do you think, most customers gonna buy?
And why do they buy the cheaper, casted piece? Is it really always
the lower price, what makes the decision? I say no! There are
thoroughly customers, who would buy the “better” piece. But they
don’t. Why? I say, because there are a lot of jewelers, who don’t
care about quality or even don’t know about quality themselves. They
only see the quick earned money. They never illuminate the customers
about the difference!

So the quintessence, under the bottom line, it is up to us
craftspeople to show the difference in all its facets. Apart from
that in time there will be only (computer-) wax-carvers left…

Mario Sarto

26

Truth be told technology is heading towards “printing” everything
from your 3D printer at home. Zcorp have some decent 3D printers, but
it’s “still” early days yet.

It will come to a point where you will buy a design for shoes, and
print them to size at home. There are metal printers already, so
jewellery may not be too far off either.

Then it will be just about the designs. Fortunately they can’t print
diamonds (they can make them), so there will still be some room for
gem setters.

I don’t see this as a good thing, but it’s a romantic notion.

Regards Charles

27 
I can make crap either way and even use cnc. The techniques used
rarely matters. Choose the best for any job. Everything has to
cross a bench before being finished.

Does the surface finish look the samewith both methods?

Regards Charles

28 
Arguing that your ring is better than any cast version of it does
not prove anything. For the same, there are pieces that are
impossible to make by hand - following your logic this would prove
the superiority of casting over fabrication.

The reason I mentioned my ring is because, it was said, on this
forum, that anything made by hand can be done by casting. I say it is
absolutely false, and the ring proves it. It cannot be duplicated by
casting, or anything else for that matter, except a pair of trained
hands attached to a brain.

I do not want to go into discussion, why it is not possible. Anybody
can try to do it and convince themselves.

As far as existence of the designs, which cannot be fabricated and
only can be done by casting, I have never encountered such designs.
I have won a lot bets by hand fabricating, what seems to be
impossible. You see, if you are using technology, you are limited by
that technology, and any technology have limitation.

The only entity with unlimited powers is human brain. That is the
only technology that I like to use.

What can be said about casting is that there are designs, which are
easier to cast, than to fabricate, but while there are things, which
out of the realm of casting, there are nothing, out of the realm of
hand fabrication.

And the last point. You said that you have the feeling that I do it
on purpose. Of course I am. When I started this career, goldsmith
was a title, which people used with reverence. Goldsmith shop was
the place where magic happened.

Now, the trade was taken over by…, can’t think of a proper term.
Anyway, the art of hand fabrication, if not preserved, will be gone
forever. Books do not have everything, no matter how good books may
be. There are things which can only be learned by doing it. Only by
constantly solving problems of how to make things, one acquires the
experience and the knowledge of hand fabrication. I am trying to
remind of that every chance I get.

Leonid Surpin

29 
is there anything in the ring you would like to see done
differently, or is the purpose of this exercise just simple
replication?

Simple replication will do. I listed the size, the weight, and the
density. See how close you can get to those numbers. As far as
destructive testing - just set the stones without using any backing.
I use simple clamp. If it survives the setting and the polishing, we
will consider it success.

Leonid Surpin

30 
This is a perennial nonsensical argument that jewelry students (and
professors) sit around in berets, sipping on espressos, debate
endlessly. Because the entire topic has no meaning whatsoever. Jim
Binnion says today that you can't cast much fabrication because of
shrinkage and loss of detail, which is true on the face of it. But
jewelry and production design is based on working around that.
Certainly you can't cast mokume.

It probably is a nonsensical argument, and the customer determines
what is “good”, but I want to make the best I can, and if the methods
I’m using at the moment are “sub-standard” I’d really like to know.

Certainly you can’t cast Mokume. Well true, not cast exactly, and
the same was said about pattern welding ferrous metals (misnamed
Damascus these days), however there is a company that uses a sintered
metal layering technique that can reproduce these patterns. No one
has yet made Mokume Gane this way, but it’s possible to do. At this
stage it would be cheaper to do Mokume by hand, because of the
volumes of metal powder involved.

Here is a friend of mine that make “Damascus” metal by hand
http://www.atar.com, and here is the company that uses technology to
achieve the same result http://www.damasteel.com. Durability in this
instance is the same. The down side (and this is a personal opinion),
is that the Damasteel is flawless, and lacks the occasional
randomnesss that’s created by making these patterns by hand,
Damasteel is “too” good.

Regards Charles

31 
Make good jewelry. Make it suitable for its purpose and
parameters. You will at times be faced with the decision to cast or
fab. I'd say you should base that decision on that particular job.
Its requirements. Remember that unless you make strictly museum
pieces that never sell, what you are really making are (hopefully)
commercially viable products. While I am the first to say that
sometimes overkill is a good thing...sometimes good enough is just
that.

I throw flowers, or a toy wombat. As said before I’m a noob to fine
jewellery, and when I am told that one method will produce a more
elegant result, I do listen, but I will not take anything for
granted, because I’m new to this side of it. I am unfamiliar with the
people and their experience, this will change.

I do appreciate people grounding the discussion, such as yourself,
and reminding me that it’s about the customer, and the end product,
not the construction method.

Thank you.
Regards Charles

32 
following your logic this would prove the superiority of casting
over fabrication. Sometimes I have the feeling that you are doing
it on purpose.

So will I be wasting my time if I made an exact duplicate, as
outlined earlier? I’m not trying to duplicate durability, just
appearance. I thought it would be a fun exercise :frowning:

Regards Charles

33 
Just because something is cast does not mean it won't last. It
might. And you don't know that those viking pieces were used a lot
either. However, if you compare two identical pieces, one cast,
the other fabricated, under identical conditions of use ans wear,
the cast piece will not do as well. How large the difference is can
be variable of course. And as has been noted, some hand made work
is still garbage, while some cast work is high quality. But as I
said, two otherwise equal in quality pieces, one cast, the other
made from rolled, drawn, forged, metal, if compared, will show a
clear difference.

True, but a ring is usually worn, and it’s a safe bet that a grave
find would contain personal jewellery, not always grave offerings.
Vikings used silver jewellery not only for “bling” purposes, but for
currency, the term “hack” silver was basically how Vikings bartered.
They’d use their scales to weight a piece of jewellery, and if it was
too big they’d “hack” it up, for buying commodities.

My original point was replication of a handmade piece. A casting and
a handmade piece can be identical in appearance, but I agree that
mechanical properties would be a lot different.

You mentioned a clear difference, is this surface clarity,
glossiness. If I take a bronze ingot (90/10) and form it into a flat
disk. I can get a mirror polish on that disk. If I cast a bronze disk
I can still get a mirror polish on that disk, and it would look the
same. Mechanically it wouldn’t be the same, but it would “look” the
same.

Can you provide an example, maybe an image comparison off the net,
or maybe some examples you have.

I’m, trying to learn a lot, and this means I have to work through
all these past experiences, so bare with me.

Yes, but the degree of work hardening you give a casting is
minimal. Grain refining and heat treating for hardness can only go
so far. There are some exceptions, of course. Heat treatable
platinum, if cast and properly treated, may end up harder and more
durable than fabricated iridium platinum. But here, of course,
you're comparing two different alloys.

Well I wouldn’t be giving the casting any work hardening, maybe get
something from a tumbler, but I don’t know significant that would
be.

I want to clarify this. Would you agree that a cast ring and a
handmade ring “could” be made to look identical? I’m not disputing
mechanical properties at all.

One of the points that came up was that a cast ring will have a
different surface finish to a hand made ring.

Any casting will have some porosity. Good quality castings will
have that porosity be on such a small size scale as to be not
objectionable or visible without a microscope, and with some cast
metal, high magnification or sophisticated equipement may be
needed to see or measure it. But it's there. Casters can refer to
their castings in terms of their density. It's common for castings
to have a density a few percent under the theoretical density of
that metal, simply because the porosity lowers it. Once forged,
rolled, drawn, etc, metal density generally will be nearly or
actually the true density of that alloy.

Porosity, yeah I’d agree with that, but if you can’t see the
porosity without the aid of a microscope, then from a customers point
of view wouldn’t it be a zero care factor?

Density is a funny thing, especially if you pack the metal (which is
essentially what you’re doing when you roll metal in a mill). The
ferrous metals I play with, and pattern weld (similar to Mokume
Gane), end up very dense due to compression of the grain structure.

As to surface finish, that density of the rolled, drawn, forged,
etc metal will make it possible with proper polishing, to get the
highest possible degree of finish for that metal. Lower density
porous metal will simply not allow exactly the same. Whether the
difference is enough to see, depends on the situation. And some
forms of processing of a casting, such as steel shot tumbling or
burnishing, or anything else which is working and compressing the
surface of the metal, will result in metal that, for finishing
purposes, is the same as forged, rolled, drawn, etc, simply because
that surface skin is indeed such metal. Add to this, issues of grain
size. In some castings, the grain size may be quite large, and
sometimes this can lead to an orange peel surface when polishing.
Proper casting methods usually can help eliminate this, and with
some metals, it's also possible to cause such problems, usually by
over annealing, or over working, the metal while fabricating.
Still, the problem seems a bit more common with castings.

I think you are telling me (and correct me if I’m wrong), that the
quality of a casting, considering the alloy being cast, will
determine the end product, and how close (or identical, to the human
eye) that final product will be.

Regards Charles

34 
Take a look at some of the pieces I make and see if they can be
created by hand fabrication. I would doubt it.

Each and every piece can be hand fabricated. It probably would be
fair for you to insist on me actually making and posting a pictures,
but I do not the luxury of time. So let me propose a compromise.

Pick any piece, that you like and I will post a description of how I
would go about making it. I guaranty that description will be clear,
and leave no doubt that it could be made as described.

Leonid Surpin

35

This is always an interesting topic, especially today because people
seem to only think of casting as mass production tool in which case
it could not possibly be called hand made.

What would one call a hand carved sculpted piece of wax jewelry that
is only cast once without mold just because it is the fabrication
mean that will give the best result in that case? Wouldn’t it be
called hand made?

To complicate matter further if in one single piece of jewelry
includes cast parts as well as constructed parts, everything held
together by bolts and nuts or other cold connections and /or
soldering, what does one call it?

Is a forged piece that have been grinded or drilled partially by a
flexshaft hand made?

As everyone seem to agree upon workmanship can be great to awfull
regardless of the fabrication process.

Cyrille

36

Whether handmade is better than cast sounds a little like elitism to
me! Maybe different, maybe each has it’s own advanttages and
disadvantages. After all remember that the original wax piece in a
casting is ‘hand made’. Doesn’t seem to affect longevity or beauty
or much else. Maybe we have more important things to worry about.

Sandra
Elegant Insects
Mostly Cast!

37 
So will I be wasting my time if I made an exact duplicate, as
outlined earlier? I'm not trying to duplicate durability, just
appearance. I thought it would be a fun exercise :-(

That is an interesting question. My educational background is
Monumental Arts. If you wondering how did I got from making very
large things to making very small ones, I am wondering myself. But my
main attraction to goldsmithing was the combination of Art and
Engineering in one small package.

Jewellery without the property of been able to survive many years of
abuse is not a jewellery, but a Christmass Tree decorations.
Appearance is only a part of the equation, durability is another.
Comfort of wearing is critical. Easy maintenance, ability to be
repaired, ability to be cleaned - all very important factors.

That what it means to me. Casting can only replicate some of these
properties, but only hand fabrication can deliver them all.

That said, I think you should still try to replicate it, even if
only appearance is the goal. There are important lessons to learn
about casting. Even if you could get wax model to be exact, and it
is a big if, due to metal shrinkage, loss of details is inevitable.
Because thickness is not uniform, neither will be the shrinkage, so
you are going to have a distortion, and etc… There is a long
laundry list of problems, but the best way to learn them is to try
and replicate the ring.

I do not want to create an impression that this ring is some kind of
a shibboleth, of what hand fabrication is. It is actually quite
primitive. The reason I am using it as an example, simply because I
can show it. Keep in mind, I am currently working on producing a
series of 12 DVDs, in increasing level of difficulty. This ring is
the first one and is the easiest. If you want to see what hand
fabrication can do, stay tuned for number 12.

Leonid Surpin

38 
It probably is a nonsensical argument, and the customer determines
what is "good", but I want to make the best I can, and if the
methods I'm using at the moment are "sub-standard" I'd really like
to know.

Charles, I’m sure you already read it, but Stephen Walker put it
most eloquently, today:

what they were really trying for was empowering the individual's
creative spirit and preserving the sense of pride, skill and fun
that comes with making beautiful things. For some craftsmen and
critics this morphed into a very intellectual and idealistic quest
for a "handmade" purity.

And more… Orchid is a place with much to offer, but you need to
watch your step, too. I, for one - Neil said it the other day, too -
operatefrom the assumption that people want to make money,
theoretically anyway (maybe they’re not selling yet but they want
to). It’s cash flow that lets you run a real jewelry business.

There is much idealism… Leonid says today that his (very noble)
motives are to promote hand work - can’t argue with that. He also
says that anything can be made by hand - i.e. fabricated. Well, not
in this lifetime. Idealistically, yes, but this isn’t a $10,000 job
it’s a $100 job.

If you say (here) that something is “good enough” then you’ll get
people saying that good enough isn’t good enough. And there’s a high
percentage of people who have the mind-set that a solo artist
working in the basement IS the model of the jewelry industry.

Just make it. We fabricate the fabrication work - that’s my
department - and we cast the casting work and we have sense enough
to know the difference. There’s a place where Jim Binnion’s vast
metallurgical knowlege and Peter’s discourse on micro-porosity come
into play, but usually that’s where you are optimizing production of
1000 rings a week and the like. Believe me, I’m an expert craftsman
and an expert polisher and there is no way you are going to tell the
difference in polish between cast and rolled at ~the industry
standard~, which is 10x. I say this because people DO QC on each and
every piece we put out, every day. Saying that cast metal has a
tensile strength of 10 and fabricated metal has 40 might be true but
it really, truly means little because the human hand can only take 1.

I personally think that Cad/Cam has altered the course of the
jewelry industry in ways that can be negative and can be positive. A
friend of mine has a line of shared-prong eternity rings. Instead of
having 500 pounds of rubber molds of every ring size and every
diamond size and every variant (and a year of model making), he just
has it on a flash drive. And none of the deformation you get with
rubber molding such items, either. And it can’t be stressed enough
that there’s a huge advantage to having “monolithic” jewelry, often
times. That shared-prong ring with 30 stones has 75 solder joints,
if made by hand. Next year when it gets sized or tipped by the wrong
jeweler, it will just fall into a heap of broken metal, potentially.

If you’re the artist in the basement you may gain some great
satisfaction hand crafting those eternity rings - you might get one a
day, if you’re good at it. If you’re a businessman trying to move
product, you’ll get 20 with CNC and they’ll be solid jewelry, too.
And there won’t be the slightest difference between them to the
customer’s eyes. I’m an artist - I’m anartist who uses the tools and
technology at my disposal to make a product for sale. I could have a
“pure” shop - no electricity, hand power and candles - “That’s real
craftmanship, a man and his bench” Ain’t gonna happen… Just make
it, leave the idealism for the idealists.

39 
The craftspeople who are very good at fabrication have alot of
time and skill invested in thier form of expression and are going
to prefer that product and process.

I think that really gets to the heart of it. We can become so
invested and absorbed in what we focus our energies on that we can
develop blinders to the benefits of other processes. It reminds me of
an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon by Bill Watterson. It’s in four
frames…

First frame - Calvin is bent over making a snowball and says, “This
is the finest snowball ever made!”

Second frame - Calvin admires the snowball and says, “Painstakingly
hand-crafted into a perfect sphere from a secret mixture of slush,
ice, dirt, debris and fine fine powder snow, this is the ultimate
winter weapon!”

Third frame - Calvin continues, “Yes this marvel of crystalline
engineering wi…”, then WHAP!!! Calvin is hit in the back of the
head with a snowball, is knocked off his feet as his hat and mittens
go flying through the air.

Last frame - Hobbes sits with his eyes closed in contemplation as he
makes another snowball and says, “Another casualty of the seduction
of art.”

Mark

40 
Anyway, the art of hand fabrication, if not preserved, will be
gone forever. Books do not have everything, no matter how good
books may be. There are things which can only be learned by doing
it. Only by constantly solving problems of how to make things, one
acquires the experience and the knowledge of hand fabrication. I am
trying to remind of that every chance I get.

Very true, two other crafts I do are blacksmithing, and leatherwork.
blacksmithing is having a revival, but it’s long since there was a
blacksmith in every village.

Leather work is worse, although people like the items, I can’t find
anyone that “wants” to learn the craft. Offering free tuition also
does not attract people :frowning:

The problem is that we can fight technology as much we like, but in
the end the term “niche” market will be very apt.

Regards Charles