To begin each piece, I started with roughly hand carving the base shape of each ring. Using hand and drill files, I carved out the gestures of each ring into purple hard wax.

Using soft buildable wax, smaller files, sand paper and fine carving tools, I began to refine the forms of each of the rings. As I was creating rings for family members and friends, each style was distinct and took time to hand finish.

Over the course of the three weeks I created eight different rings to cast. In order to invest the metal, I had to build a tree connecting all of the rings, this allows for proper flow of the metal during casting.

Once the tree was formed it was placed into the investment tube, we then filled this with a water soluble casting medium to serve as our mold. This was then place in a kiln to slowly fire away the wax, leaving only the negative behind.

As a part of this process I was able to select the material I wanted for the rings. In this case I selected .925 Sterling Silver casting grain.

Because I was actively torching hot metal, I didn’t photograph the investing process, but it did require some serious eye protection and torching a crucible until there was molten metal!

When the rings are invested and then quenched, they come out looking very dull and pale. From here I removed the sprues from each ring and began to file away at unnecessary parts.

After a lot of buffing and polishing, the rings begin to take final form with a soft glossy shine.