HOW WE MAKE JEWELRY

From Raw Gold To Finished Products
From Raw gold to finished products, many of our birthstones are made in our family-run jewelry factory. The method we use is called Lost Wax Casting which goes back thousands of years. We begin the process by making a wax mold for each ring. The wax is placed into a flask and then into an oven and burned out at 1300 degrees. The wax melts away leaving a cavity which we then pour gold into. After a variety of grinding and sanding steps, the ring is now ready for stone setting. This is where the ring really comes to life. The stones are handset. We then polish the ring to a fine finish and another
Amy & Andy creation is born.


Mold Making
To produce a jewelry item, you must first design an original item. Then the item must be packed tightly with raw rubber inside a metal frame. After heating and curing the rubber for about one hour, the ring is ready to be cut out of the cured rubber

 


Cutting The Mold
Now it is time to cut the rubber and remove the original model. This is not as easy as it may seem, cutting a mold properly takes many years of practice. Some molds have up to 8 individual pieces that have to fit together like a puzzle.


Injecting The Wax
Now that the original model has been successfully cut out, a cavity is left in the rubber mold which we will inject wax into. Hot wax is forced into the cavity by pressure with a commercial wax injector

 


Building A Ring Tree
The wax rings are cleaned and attached to a wax sprue making ready for investing and casting.

 


Attaching Wax Tree To Rubber Base

The ring tree is attached to a rubber base.

 


Metal Flask
A metal flask is placed around the tree making a water tight container
to prepare for the next step.

 


Mixing Investment
A mixture called investment is mixed with water.

 


Vacuum
The investment must be placed in a vacuum chamber to remove all air bubbles from the solution. Failure to do this step will result in a very rough casting..

 


Oven
After about one hour of drying , the flask is placed in an oven where it is heated to about 1350 degrees. The wax ring tree is melted away leaving a cavity just like the wax tree. This is where the process gets it's name "Lost Wax Casting".


Casting
After burnout is complete, the flask is placed in the centrifugal casting machine where gold is melted and forced into the cavity in the flask.

 


Gold Tree
The results are a gold ring tree exactly like the wax tree that we
started with.

 


Cutting
The rings are now cut off the sprue with hydraulic cutters.

 


Roughing
Each ring is now hammered flat and rounded on a ring stick, then sanded and shaped to prepare for the tumbling process.

 


Tumbling
The tumbling process is next. This is a series of rough to fine coarse media that takes about three days to complete. The results are a ring that is bright and shiny and ready for stone setting.

 


Setting
Each setting is drilled and the stones are set.

 


Polishing
After setting , the ring is now ready for polishing. Polishing is about a 10 step process of several grits of abrasives until a fine finish is accomplished.

 


Cleaning
The last process is to thoroughly clean the product in an ultrasonic cleaning machine, dried and ready for sell.

 

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