Becoming a Jeweler

As mentioned before, there really isn't a whole lot of items available to children when it comes to fine jewelry. The market is definitely there as I consistently have customers who come into the store I work at requesting it. I also have so many ideas for really cool interchangeable and "grow with me" jewelry that is not available at all. That is what finally prompted me to start buying my own jewelry making equipment and learn to start manufacturing them myself. Now I had never made anything out of silver or gold before. I took a short course as noted in my previous posts that taught me basic techniques such as sawing, soldering and stamping, but I still have a lot to learn. I started researching different ways of producing jewelry and found that the lost wax casting technique seemed to be the most interesting to me. I contacted my vendor and began ordering all of the equipment blindly. I literally watched a few Youtube videos and bought everything I saw them use.

The lost wax casting technique is an ancient jewelry making technique using wax models that are melted away and replaced by molten metals such as gold and silver. In the past these wax models had to be carved by hand, but with today's technology you can create your models in a CAD system and print them via a 3D wax printer.  I decided to go ahead and order some wax models from a vendor at first to get the casting part down before spending time making my own models and ultimately damaging them during the casting process.