I use my silver for casting jewellery, and when alloying it, it’s nice to cast it in lumps approximately the right size for a later cast.
(I know it’s perverted to actually use the metal for something… but, well, I’m just like that)
My method is simple:
A piece of 5 mm steel plate and the inner ring from a ball bearing.
Both parts are oiled with WD-40, the ring is placed on the steel plate, and the metal poured into it. It hardens quickly, the ring is lifted of, and you have a really pleasing "coiny" lump of metal.
From the left is a piece of relatively fine silver, a sterling lump (which had a lid placed on the ring right after casting, thus reducing the copper oxide on the surface) and a normally oxidized sterling.
And at last the ring, of course :wink:
(I know it’s perverted to actually use the metal for something… but, well, I’m just like that)
My method is simple:
A piece of 5 mm steel plate and the inner ring from a ball bearing.
Both parts are oiled with WD-40, the ring is placed on the steel plate, and the metal poured into it. It hardens quickly, the ring is lifted of, and you have a really pleasing "coiny" lump of metal.
From the left is a piece of relatively fine silver, a sterling lump (which had a lid placed on the ring right after casting, thus reducing the copper oxide on the surface) and a normally oxidized sterling.
And at last the ring, of course :wink: