Hi Guys!
I was talking to a customer who is interested in having a pair of earrings made that are of leaves. Do you guys have any idea if it is possible to directly cast (I use a spin caster) something like that? I know most leaves are probably too thin to directly cast, but does anyone have any tips on how I may go about thickening it up without losing detail?
Any help is great help!
Ava
So the easiest way to do this is to get a silicone mold of leaves on Amazon they use for fondant icing and then pour melted casting wax into the mold. If the leaves have to be double-sided then build the back up with wax and carve the back. The back of a leaf is easier to carve than the front so it really shouldn’t take much work. Then just cast that model when you’re done. The molds they sell on Amazon are extremely detailed, I have some and they make a ton of different kinds. You can get oak leaves, rose leaves, that actually look like the leaf of each different plant. Otherwise you’re looking at carving the whole thing yourself. You can cast actual leaves, too. Some species of plants do better than others when you cast them. But the cast is going to be very, very thin and delicate if you stick a real leaf in investment. I recommend the silicone molds and just pour wax in. It’ll have the detail of a real leaf and the thickness to make it more durable. If you’re going to solder the back of it to a backplate or something and essentially you just need a solderable charm, it’ll be even easier. I found with the silicone molds you do need to buff the wax a bit when you pull the wax out of the mold, but that’s easy.
Look at chasing, repulse, roll printing and impression dies.
Have a look at:
Sorry, that should be repousse not repulse. These are all ways to make leaves. You can also make or buy a pancake die to cut out blanks and then add detail by engraving artful lines. If you look at my website on the custom and other jewelry page you will see pieces of jewelry using various leaf designs. There is also a wonderful pdf in the archives by James Miller that shows how he made leaves. If I can find it, I will post a link…Rob
Look at this link.
As others are saying casting leaves is complicated. Especially for earrings because they need to be light. Here’s what I know.
First, you should try it. You’ll learn a lot. Leaves that are small, dried and woody will be best. Big floppy green leaves won’t withstand the investment process. It can be helpful to coat your dried, woody leaf with shellac before investing. Sculptors often coat found objects (especially twigs and sticks) with shellac in bronze casting. The shellac gives the leaf a tiny bit of strength and helps to seal it during the investment process
But chances are you’re going to find that it really didn’t work, so what’s next?
Quickly dipping dried leaves in paraffin wax can give them enough structure and width to cast, but they’ll loose some resolution in their fine details. Plus, they’ll be thicker and heavier. Maybe too heavy for earrings? It depends on how big the leaf is. Paraffin is better than jewelry injection wax because it’s a very thin, fluid wax. Be sure to melt the paraffin in a double boiler as it can catch on fire when being heated.
The best cast leaves for jewelry that I’ve ever seen is to just coat the back side of the dried leaf with wax. That allows the front to have all of the details and from one side it looks like a real leaf. But again, this creates a heavier metal leaf.
Next is what others have said, to abandon casting and move on to fabrication. You can get amazing leaf detail in sheet metal by roller printing/embossing. Lots of jewelry artist do this technique. Again, the leaf needs to be dry, flat and kind of woody (green and floppy won’t work). Sandwich the dried leaf between two pieces of sheet metal, roll it through the mill, then saw it out and shape it. Two big perks with this idea is that the top and bottom of the printed leaf will give you a right and a left embossed impression. Very handy in earring making! The other perk is the leaf will be as light as possible in metal.
There are other ways to make leaf-like jewelry as others are saying with various fabrication techniques, but these are the ways that I know how to use actual leaves.
There actually is one other way, which is often used with tourist destination jewelry, where they paint an actual leaf with metal conductive paint and then electroform metal on top if it. Electroformed leaves look like actual metal leaves and are also very light. But you’ve got to have access to electro forming equipment, which involves chemicals, electricity and acid baths.
I hope all this helps! Like I said, if you have your own casting set up you should try casting some leaves. You’ll learn a lot and hopefully have some fun!
Jeff
Also, take a look at electroforming objects like leaves. I did a piece of elbow macaroni just for fun and it turned out well. Following should be a link…Rob
James Miller was an amazing person. His book (“The Work of a Master Goldsmith”) showing creations in gold and gemstones is eye candy for jewelers!
Judy in Kansas, where trees are in full bloom, but the turtles are still underground. Maybe spring has not yet sprung?
I was also thinking of electroforming because you could use any leaf you can find in nature and get a very detailed and natural looking result in metal. Engraving or carving or repousse to match such would take incredible time and talent. You could build up the leaf to any thickness desired and then make a mold from that and cast as many as you wanted. Or just use electroformed leaves in gold or silver or whatever. -royjohn
Electroforming is fun, but it is more complicated that just plugging in a rectifier. The website Enchanted Leaves
is a great resource for figuring out how to do it. I have leaves on my todo list, but right now I am looking for a way to artfully display some of my more interesting lapidary material that isn’t good enough to cut…Rob
These are such awesome suggestions, even the approaches that take a lot of time and talent, it’s so awesome. This is what I love most about goldsmithing: there are millions of ways to do things and every problem can be solved in an infinite number of ways. For a logical and yet artistic person, it’s pure brain candy.
Rob, Thanks for sending this website! That’s so cool that there’s a company out there with all of the stuff to electroform small objects including plant material.
Jeff
One more small business that was great to work with. They were quick to answer my questions, figure out what I wanted to do and then suggest what to buy…Rob
Ava, Metalwerx has a virtual 2-day workshop coming up at the end of May called Natural Object Casting, taught by April Wood. The course description sounds like this could be just what you’re looking for:
Many natural and found objects can be cast in metal using the “lost-wax” method, capturing incredible detail and preserving the intricate textures found in materials such as seed pods, paper and cardboard, fibers, bugs, flowers, and some hard plastics. This demo-focused virtual workshop will demonstrate how to prepare the materials for casting, give an overview of the casting process, and then show how to clean and finish the metal castings for use in jewelry.
Another option that might work for you is using PMC. You basically “paint” both sides of the leaf with PMC in a paste / slip consistency, building up several layers. The leaf burns out during firing. I haven’t tried it, but it looks like fun, and pretty easy. Cool Tools has a YouTube video showing how to make a silver leaf pendants with PMC paste. A quick search will find you others.
Cool Tools carries sterling silver clay already in paste form: EZ960 Sterling Silver Paste; there are probably other products and suppliers. I think you can also make your own PMC paste by thinning regular clay with distilled water. And no doubt the PMC artists here will be happy to share their experience and expertise.
Hope this helps - please do share what you end up doing and how it comes out! - Laura
I was looking at spin casters. Are they easier to use?
Thank you all this is really great and very informative. I’m going to do some experiments and see what works best!
take your leaf and Press (for the best leaf pattern pressvein side down) into a flattened patty of 2 part silicone (the kind you mush together with your fingers), let cure, remove leaf, press in some silver metal clay, let dry, groom and otherwise clean up the form. if you want, implant a fine silver eyelet (to which you can add an earring finding after polishing), fire. polish & wear. I can make a pair like this in under 60" Other types of metal clay can be used too: gold, bronze copper etc.
Just to add one more method to your collection, metal clay makes fast and easy leaves. You can either make the mold as mentioned previously and use metal clay in the mold and then fire it with a torch or kiln (according to the directions). Or, you can make a slip, which is a thin paste, with metal clay and paint it onto a leaf in very thin layers. You need at least 10 layers and they need to be completely dried between layers. Then torch or kiln bake the whole thing and the leaf material will burn off leaving a fairly decent metal leaf.
If you’re intent on casting them Craig Dabler has a website for sand/clay casting and even has the leaf forms or molds of different style leaves. I’d encourage you though to make your own. I make leaves for a lot of my jewelry, usually from 22 ga sheet and round wire just by drawing, sawing them out, filing in the edges, and stamping. That way your sizes, styles, shapes and designs are unlimited.
