Silver Rings Settings & Bands from Castings

Sterling Silver Rings, and Setting produced by casting

The basis of producing most gold and silver rings and jewelry is to carve an original wax model. The wax original must be perfect in every respect as the resulting casting should be an almost perfect reproduction of the original wax model. Once a wax model is produced it can be used to create a master pattern, or mold form which an unlimited supply of addition wax patterns can be cast. If a one of a kind piece of jewelry is desired the original wax carving maybe used directly and may not copied. Often even when a one of a kind setting is desired the original wax carving is copied, as a back up, just in case there is a problem in the casing process.

The process is know as investment casting. The method is basically the same if one silver ring, or fifty silver rings are cast at the same time. The wax pattern, or multiple wax patterns are placed in a casting vessel. The container is filled with a very fine plaster, cement like substance called investment. A vent must be present to permit the wax to evaporate after being melted. If many silver ring settings, and or jewelry settings are cast at the same time each wax pattern is joined to a center wax column. Once the investment hardens the casting vessel is place in an oven to melt and evaporate the wax. The result is a hollowed form to be filled with melted silver. The process sounds pretty easy, but in reality it is a highly technical precise process. The investment tends to contain air bubbles. When first mixed it resembles pan cake batter, and is fill of air bubbles. The material is placed in a vacuum chamber to remove the air bubbles before it hardens. If the air bubbles were not removed the ring settings would have many defects. The surface of the rings would be covered with many little bumps. The melted silver would fill in the spaces caused by the air bubbles and produce a distorted useless ring.

The sterling silver used for most rings and jewelry production comes in the form of tiny beads which are called silver grain. The sterling silver grain melts at about 1400 degrees, but must be heated to about 1600 degrees to flow freely. The problem at this stage is to get the melted silver to totally fill the entire mold. Mechanical force such as centrifugal action is applied to force the melted silver to totally fill the mold. Silver rings and settings have many very fine details. The molten silver must fill the mold completely to reproduce these details.

Once the casing vessel has cooled the investment material is removed from the castings. A typical casing vessel can hold twenty to fifty silver rings. When many settings are cast at once there is a center column of silver from which each ring setting or band must be cut off. The connection from the center column to each ring is know as a spur. The spurs are cut off from the rings, and them delicate filing is done to properly shape the ring where the spur was removed.

The raw rings now have a yellow white appearance which is a combination of a thin coating of the investment material and oxygen by products. The raw casting must now be polished. If only one silver ring was casted it my be polished by using a revolving motor driven brush. When multiple casing are polished they are placed in a revolving or vibrating cylinder filled with very small stainless steel ball bearings. This will remove most of the casting debris. The process can then be repeated with a polishing compound, or using a revolving motor driven brush. Generally the polishing process is repeated using finer and finer polishing wheels utilization very fine grain polishing compounds.

The Polished silver ring setting is now ready to be prepared to have a jewel set. If a prong style setting is used the prongs must be shaped and prepared to accept a jewel or gem stone. The basic setting process involves shaping the tops of the prongs and cutting groves into the prongs to fit the stone. The stone is then placed into the prongs, and they are then bent over to hold the stone.

Sterling silver rings which are mass produced still require significant hand labor.
Mass produced Sterling silver rings are affordable as the original wax carvings permits the production of many duplicate silver rings.