This week I took a sand casting course with the amazing jeweler Jesse Bert, at my dear friend Cristina Celis's studio in Mexico City. Sand casting is an ancient method that uses sand as a mold material to cast metal. It is used to reproduce everything: from car parts, to statues and bells.
I took the course because I want to make jewelry with more volume, and this simple method lets you reproduce any piece made of a hard material and cast it into metal. The results were not what I expected. Some of my pieces came out with holes, sunken areas, or missing parts. I was disappointed at first but soon realized that these accidents enriched the piece, if I was willing to work with them. My first sand cast ring is now among my favorites.
I took the course because I want to make jewelry with more volume, and this simple method lets you reproduce any piece made of a hard material and cast it into metal. The results were not what I expected. Some of my pieces came out with holes, sunken areas, or missing parts. I was disappointed at first but soon realized that these accidents enriched the piece, if I was willing to work with them. My first sand cast ring is now among my favorites.
We used Delft red sand as a mold material.
We imprinted the original piece into the Delft sand,
that was tightly compacted inside a two part cylinder.
We used a thin metal bar to poke holes and let air circulate
so the molten metal can flow freely into the mold.
that was tightly compacted inside a two part cylinder.
We used a thin metal bar to poke holes and let air circulate
so the molten metal can flow freely into the mold.
We heated pieces of silver with a torch until they became molten.
We poured molten silver into a hole in the sand that reached the center of the piece that was being reproduced.
An example of a student's first cast piece.
My first sand-cast ring.
The roughness gives it character.
The roughness gives it character.
