Hi Orchid, I am designing a line of stone-set argentium rings, mostly
from hand fabricated originals that I’m making rubber molds from for
casting. My question is how should I deal with sizing? My little
store doesn’t have space for a workbench and I honestly don’t like
resizing stone rings anyway, so should I make rubber molds for each
size and style or is itbetter to resize them in wax before casting or
after in silver after they’re cast? how do you all deal with this
issue? Until now I’ve been only making custom rings. Thanks for your
input. Douglas
The only line like that I have done- mostly I make a mold in a 7 or
so and resize- was a line of bands with leaves all around which I
couldn’t resize. I ended up making individual molds for sizes from 4
through 12, making the original for each size half a size bigger to
allow for shrinkage.
Janet Kofoed
janetkofoedjewelry.com
Hello Douglas,
You can make your molds in even or uneven sizes with a nice thick
band of metal where sizing is commonly done. Invest in a band roller
and then roll the rings up as needed to fit your client. Since you
are using Argentium and casting the mountings, the metal should
retain malleability to allow this means of sizing. Of course you can
only size up, and since you are stretching the metal, there is a
limit - ergo the use of AS and having the softest metal (cast)
possible. A little experimentation would be useful here to find the
limits.
Just a thought. Judy in Kansas