Has anyone come up with a successful way of casting jewellery in castable wax 40?
I find the suggested rinse times inaccurate. It can take a lot longer than 5 mins to get rid of uncured residue. There is a lot of shrinkage in the washing and drying period. I’ve been adding 4% for direct to metal and 10% for silver masters but this doesn’t always work. Most of my pieces are gem set so they need to be accurate. I used to always slant my models in set up as that was the recommended alignment with heavier rings but there appears to be some slumping and loss of symmetry. Though Proform says there is adequate supports should a just add more to alleviate this? The quality from casting is also hit and miss. Does anyone have advice on treeing to improve the finish? Has anyone had success with this material or should I give up and try something else.
Hi @Una,
Thank you for getting in touch. I’m sorry to hear about the inconsistent results you’ve had with Castable Wax 40 Resin. For the most thorough look into this, I would advise getting in touch with our Support Team and sharing photos/files and details about your post-processing. Washing Castable Wax 40 for much longer than 5 minutes could certainly be contributing to the shrinkage. With that said, Support could offer more detailed advice regarding part setup and post-processing as well as looking over your casting results.
Hi Una, I am a caster in the UK with 40 years experience. I have found washing Castable Wax 40 prints vigorously for 5 minutes in one wash bath and using a camel hair brush dipped in isopropanol and a wash bottle to flush out resin in hard to reach areas and then another 5minute rinse in clean isopropanol will get the uncured resin off. Then I invest into the casting plaster as soon as the items are dry. If you leave the items even for a few hours then they shrink, sometimes dramatically. So my advice is invest as soon as you can. If you are posting the items to a caster print an item with exact dimensions say a 5mm rod 2 cm long. and another 2 mm thick torus 4 cm in diameter. when you get them back measure how much they have shrunk from the original and that will give you the percentage that you need to enlarge your prints by.
Thank you Hillzzz for your reply and suggestions. I will try your methods of cleaning to speed up the process of washing and try to plan resin building to coincide with investing. We make mainly bespoke pieces for clients and one off pieces designed for specific gems size so scaling is crucial. We are a small workshop producing jewellery for one shop and cast in-house in silver, 18ct gold and platinum to order. How often we cast varies hugely and sometimes last minute orders will delay casting. A more stable resin would suit our erratic work flow better. We have just run out of castable wax 40 and I’m trying to decide whether to revert to the purple castable resin, persevere or look for alternatives. Any additional advice would be welcome!
Thanks Jesse, I have already started that process. So far I’ve only seen complaints on the forum about Castable Wax 40. I was hoping to hear if other users have a better experience.
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