Carving a Wax Model

Tom Weishaar C.M.B.J.

 

1.   Recently a customer requested that we make her an unusual mother’s ring.  She chose a magnificent 3.56 ct. oval blue sapphire as her center stone and this design was made for her ring.  The bezel set side stones, one emerald, the other peridot, represent the woman’s two children.  The ideally cut side diamonds are there for glitz only.  This ring is being made in platinum.   I thought you might like to follow along as I carve the wax model for this ring and in the next issue of Bench Magazine I will show how I bead and bright set the side melee.

 

 

 

2.  To start this carving project I roughly cut a blank of wax about 3mm wider than I needed.  I sized the wax blank using a Mattä ring tube sizer.  I always like to get my center stone in the proper position and seated before I begin carving the wax.  If I am working with a durable stone then I will use heat to sink the stone into the wax to the proper depth.  If the stone is fragile then I have to laboriously carve out the seat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  My blank wax is now what I call “blocked out”.  For me, blocking out means that the wax blank is the correct width and the sides are squared up.  In order to compensate for shrinkage and for metal lost during finishing I carve my wax to be 5% larger than I want the finished ring.  You will also notice that I flattened off the top of the wax down to the level of where I want the upper gallery support of the crown to be.  As I get close to finishing the wax model I will add back the wax for the prongs.  At this point, prong wax would be too fragile to leave in place.

 

4.  For the next step in carving this wax model I use various circle and oval templates to help me scribe indicator lines in the side of the wax blank.  These lines will help carve away the thickness of the wax blank.  I take the time to scribe the lines on both sides of the wax so that I can carve the wax squarely. 

 

 

 

5.  Next I fill the indicator lines with white paint.  After the paint has dried I like to lightly sand the surface to remove the excess paint. 

 

 

 

 

 

6 & 7 Here I’m carefully filing away the excess wax.  You can barely see on the lower edge of the wax where the white line is showing through.  If I take my time in laying out my indicator lines then I can file right to them and be confident that my wax will turn out well.  You can also see that I’ve roughly scribed in the lines where I will carve out the prongs for the center sapphire.

 

Carving a Wax Model continued