Spent a lovely afternoon with Rosa at Chama Navarro learning to make silver rings. She taught me how to use a soldering gun designed for jewelry making. I made a ring base from jewelry wax (adding texture, of course!) then used the heat gun to melt and drip the wax into the desired shapes at the top of the ring. I went for the asymmetric look.
Once I was happy with the design, she did a bit of fine tuning so the ring would fit well. After class, the ring design was sent to the foundry and magically transformed into a silver ring. Lots of steps involved to make the magic, including transforming the wax into a mold for the silver.
I would love to be able to do this more often. I did a bit of research into it, and setting up a home studio for this is not cheap. Going to keep an eye out for classes instead of adding this capability to my home studio.
Jenn Likes to Make Things 