Molten Marvels: The Magic of Sand Casting

Have you ever wanted to try casting? Maybe you’re wondering what it is or how to do it? Casting has to be one of the best ways to make custom shaped jewelry, including the forms of things you’d like to duplicate. Sand casting is an easy way to cast without having fancy equipment (like a centrifuge!). You can get set up with a minimal amount of tools and you can do it in a small amount of space. I popped up my casting studio in my kitchen!

Delft Clay on a cutting board with a straight edge to ‘cut’ it.

The procedure entails packing a special casting cylinder with sand (or in this case, Delft Clay). We prepared it with a form and a fossil gastropod shell seemed like a great candidate. We then pour molten metal, sterling silver for this shell, into the prepared cylinder.

Pouring a crucible full of molten sterling silver into the casting cylinder.

Silver casting complete with sprew.

There was a lot of trial and error through the process but, in the end, we created some fantastic casts. One of my favorite things about this technique is that you can use all your silver trims and bits from jewelry making to cast your work. You can even melt down jewelry you don’t wear any more or has broken to create new pieces. This element of recycling is very attractive and a great source of silver given the rising prices of the metals.

Sunstone and Sand Cast Fossil

Here’s one of the fantastic finished projects; the inner structure of a Miocene Era gastropod fossil cast in sterling silver! A faceted Oregon Champagne Sunstone seemed the perfect embellishment to celebrate this vestige of an ancient ocean creature recreated in the sand.

To see the whole process, check out this video on YouTube;