I re designed the standard ingot mold so that it is completely adjustable and the wire rod can be removed easily
.
I designed it to cast 8 mm and 5 mm bars.
The main thing is that the ingot is easily removable and the stop can be set to the amount of silver being cast.
So the graduations are in ten gram sections ( the picture shows 30 grams of silver that was cast.
Check out my video
Wire Ingot Mold - YouTube
to see how it works.
Cheers, Hans
Brilliant!
Hi Hans,
I would buy one….
Hi Hans,
Are your ingot molds for sale online yet?
If so, please provide the link, thanks!
Best Regards,
Julie
would like to buy one. How?
I just scrape out a neat groove in a charcoal block and put it on a slight incline. No need to heat the mold, and the charcoal provides a reducing atmosphere to reduce oxidation. Perfect ingot every time…:-)…!
Janet in Jerusalem
I cast regular shaped ingots in both open and closed ingot molds and delft clay molds. When I need an odd shaped ingot, I lay .25" square tool steel rods on my anvil in whatever shape I need, hold them in place with magnets and pour melted metal into the mold. It works very well. That all being said, I would buy one of Hans’s molds.
To rmeixner:
Do you use a super heavy duty torch to heat the anvil when using it as a mold?
Janet in Jerusalem
The anvil is just the surface on which I arrange the steel frame. It is also magnetic and allows me to keep the frame in place with magnets around the perimeter. I then just pour melted metal from a crucible into the frame with the anvil being the bottom of the frame. You could use a steel bench block or even a sheet of steel as long as it is flat. The ingot is then approximately the shape of the inside of the frame. I do this when I want a triangular shaped ingot that can then be forged or rolled into a more exaggerated shape. I am sure that other shapes could be created this way too. My torch is a Meco Midget on propane from 1 lb. camp stove cylinders and O2 from a concentrator, nothing special.
Attached should be a picture of a heavy pendant made from the casting setup that I just described. It has a rolled texture added using textured rollers and then a small ball peen hammer on the bottom portion.
I understood your setup. My point was that if an anvil or a bench block is part of your ingot-making frame, that’s a huge heat sink which would require even more heating than a regular ingot mold, no? That’s why I particularly like using a charcoal block.
Janet in Jerusalem
I use charcoal blocks too. I like the clean casting that they produce. When I need a dome shaped ingot, I pour into a dapping die mold. I use the frame when I need an odd shaped ingot to start with and one that will be further forged and/or rolled into the desired shape. I guess that there is no one right way.
That’s nice and easy. I like to make white gold ingot as small as I can
because it’s so problematic for rolling. The charcoal works well for that
and they are cheap
JanetB
The charcoal method is good for small ingots.
When heating an ingot mold, only heat to drive off moisture in a contained area or
the metal being poured will explode.
Laying steel rods on an anvil and pouring metal should not hold moisture and cause an
explosion.
Pouring an ingot of 3 ounces is not practical using a charcoal black.
Just wanted to make clear that it is not I (Janetb) who wrote the bit in the reproduced quote in Richard’s post about heating “only to drive off moisture in a contained area”. I would heat the ingot mold as hot as feasible to reduce the shock of pouring something very hot onto a much cooler surface, which, among other things, affects the speed of solidification and consequently the structure of the material in the ingot.
Hi Shannon!
Yes, I usually make relatively small ingots as well, and once I used the charcoal block, I stopped using all my other ingot molds…:-)… Since Orchid has a lot of beginner and small-scale jewelers, I always like to post simple, easy, inexpensive ways to do things. There are so many specialized tools on the market now—newbie’s can easily get discouraged by having limited finances and thinking that they need all these fancy new tools. I never cease to be amazed at the wonders produced by ancient goldsmiths with the most primitive tools…
I tried this once with fire brick without much success so I went back to my steel mold but I learned with the charcoal if you put two flat blocks together with a small square groove in one and a small funnel shape at the top they work great for thin wire pours. The problem was with white gold if the ingot was too big to start with they would inevitably crack from rolling, even with diligent annealing. If you can start with a small square ingot… problem solved. Charcoal there’s no need to preheat, it’s perfect. Just carve a channel with a big wheel burr which is good for nearly nothing else and is just laying around collecting dust.
For sure. Look at granulation from Egypt.
Here’s what I did today. You can get hard charcoal blocks too for anyone else looking at this.
BEAUTIFUL! Nice clean cuts! Thanks for the pics.
About how many grams is each ingot?
Janet in Jerusalem
