How they make twig rings?

In this months issue of the Lap Journal there are som pieces
made of twig looking gold and silver qustion is are these bent
to shape before burnout or are they cast as straight sticks and
then mandrel formed? Leon

In this months issue of the Lap Journal there are som pieces
made of twig looking gold and silver   qustion is are these bent
to shape before burnout or are they cast as straight sticks and
then mandrel formed? Leon

In the article, Ms. Roof casts the sticks to make a mold. It
could be that she’s forming her pieces from a wax “replica”?

Just a thought…

In reference to the question of the cast twigs formed into rings
and whether they are bent prior to casting, or post casting, I
would suggest that if you can’t get an answer from the artist,
you could also talk with Marleen Seckendorf whose work includes
casting and shaping of twigs within her designs. Marleen used to
run the jewelry program at College of Marin and has moved. If
there is someone out there who knows Marleen and can contact her
to see if she would be willing to share her technique, we could
gain the benefit of her process. She would be a wonderful
addition to the knowledge base in this great site.

Shael Barger
dakotahdog@msn.com

I don’t know what you mean by “twig rings” (My native language
is not English) But I presume the metal has tree like texture. Am
I right? In Practical Wax Modelling Advance Technics by Hiroshi
Tsuyuki and Yoko Ohba a special kind of wax is very throughly
explained: MITSURO. Maybe this is the kind of wax used to mold
the rings.

F. Oya Borahan
WWW.alisails.simplenet.com/oya

Leon, I have cast twigs in sterling and found that they bend
easily. The tricky part would be getting the texture to remain
after forming it. My advice would be a good annealing and using
only hand pressure to wrap the twig around the mandral.

Jeff Cleveland aka JevFro
505 E. 3rd
Ellensburg, Washington 98926
JevFro@hotmail.com
http://www.cwu.edu/~clevelaj

You can sprue up twigs and other organic materials. It just
burns out in the kiln and you cast into the hole just like wax.

Cheers
Virginia