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Handmade vs Casting What difference does it make and why should we care? #Jewellery #Engagementring #Diamondring

Writer's picture: erebounijewellery1erebounijewellery1

Every time we make an engagement or wedding ring; the same question comes up.

“Casting or handmade?”


Are there any differences? Does it change anything?


Let’s start with handmade jewellery. When making an item by hand, we are working with the raw metal that will become the finished product. As such, we have to bend, hammer & file the item to the desired final shape, this will mean that we solder one part to another, we measure things and file until we have the desired outcome.


The item itself is made piece by piece, sometimes 2 pieces, sometimes many more, put together by a craftsman and then set with diamonds or coloured stones to make a piece of jewellery.


A handmade piece of jewellery will always:

Be harder than a cast item (around 50% increase in hardness in all metals)

Never have porosity

Always be unique and bespoke

 

Now let’s look at cast jewellery, nowadays it is mostly CAD (Computer Aided Design). When using CAD or wax to model an item, we are making a template for repeatability, this enables mass manufacturing of items that are near identical to be made, how many do you need to make? One item or fifty? Both are achievable with casting, and take the same amount of time to process.


The item is either hand carved into wax or designed with CAD then printed with wax, which is then put into the production process which is a multi-step exercise, using wax injectors, vacuum pumps to remove oxygen bubbles, vulcanizers and rubber sheets to make injectable moulds along with plaster for formation and finally heated kilns and flasks using melted gold to give us the final item before it is cleaned, polished & set.


A cast piece of jewellery will always:

Have less density

Have a possibility of porosity coming to the surface

 

A sample image of a ring being repaired showing a casting bubble (porosity) is in the image below:



This is obviously something that can’t be seen by someone wearing the ring or inspecting it, but it is a point of weakness. Added to the metal being less dense and softer due to not being “work hardened” it is an issue with any and all castings, these can be minimised if you use the correct techniques, but can never be truly removed from the equation.


Both handmade items and cast items take around 2-3 weeks to make, the difference is usually in the final price, however, there are many occasions when a handmade item will actually be significantly faster or cheaper than a cast item.


A notable example of this would be wedding rings, which worn daily require more hardness, strength & durability, and if simple, can be made in a period of a day for customers in a rush (which has happened, people do forget to order rings for their wedding, don’t worry, they aren’t the first, or last to do so) which is obviously much faster than a two week process for a cast item.


If you are interested in having us make something for your engagement, wedding or anniversary ring, come in and have a no obligation friendly chat in our store in located on level 4 of the Dymocks building, Sydney.


You can find some examples of previous work here https://www.erebounijewellery.com.au/rings


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