crown and bridge

i've finally finished my first year as a dental technology student. it was with a huge sigh of relief when i finished my last exam and handed in my last assignment. i learned how to make a lot of things this year - mouthguards, retainers, dentures, partial dentures, space maintainers, crowns and copings. and while my crown and bridge class was definitely the most stressful, i think that i like making crowns the most.

out of all the things i learned to do this past year, making crowns is definitely the most artistic and similar to jewellery. which is probably why i like it the most. when you're done waxing up a crown there is a sense of accomplishment and pride that doesn't come as much as setting up the teeth in dentures, or just carving down pre-made teeth. in crown and bridge you are making the forms and you're so proud when you're done. 

when making crowns, every line angle, every elevation, every area that hits another tooth is important. while we consider symmetry, we also have to consider how the jaws move, how much pressure is exerted and the teeth that remain in the mouth.

boo...blurry photo. oh well. like in jewellery, we make the forms in wax first and then cast them in metal. porosity is a huge deal in crown and bridge, too much of it and the form is unuseable. if the margins on the bottom of the tooth form don't cast properly it won't fit in the space it's supposed to on the mouth.

i've never had to be so precise in my life, but i'm liking it. 

extending a chain part two

this post is a continuation from a few posts back. after i got the mold and wax injections for Wayne's bracelets made, i sent the wax pieces to the casting house. this is what they looked like once i got them back. 

and then after i cleaned them up. 

cutting through the sterling silver was waaay easier than cutting through the stainless steel of the originals. they were also much easier to open - i didn't have to hurt myself trying to hammer the links apart just to slide them into each other.

i did manage to hurt myself though - it was stupid really. we're taught in school to never ever, ever, try to polish chain on a polishing machine, because it will always get caught. we polish our jewellery with rotating buffs in a machine similar to a grinding machine. i don't know how fast it moves, but it's faster than your eyes can follow. 

since Wayne's bracelet was made of such large links i didn't even consider it to be a chain really. so i was almost done polishing the first bracelet, and i decided to be silly and close the catch, and then polish that too. but the little button on the catch got caught in the machine and pulled the bracelet forward, whipping it around with the wheel and back into my fingers at lightning speed :( it makes me cringe just thinking about it.

 

the impact with the machine made an awful noise that alarmed my studio mate. i then turned off the machine to find that some of my fingers were  numb-ish, swollen, and slightly bloody. i also later developed some nasty looking blood bruises. while this was great in itself, i also had the pleasure of having every jeweller friend i told lecture me on polishing safety :p

anyways...

my fingers are looking much better now and Wayne was uber happy with his bracelets. can you tell which links are sterling silver?

extending a chain part one

Wayne came by to visit me with the hope of elongating his two stainless steel bracelets. i had never seen links in a bracelet that were as huge as this. i was a little wary at first since i had no experience working with stainless steel before but fortunately for Wayne i was scheduled to attend Shao Pin's stainless steel workshop that  weekend.

basically, i had to remove a link from the bracelet and make a mold of it so that i could cast two new ones in sterling silver. i didn't have the right saw blades for stainless steel, so it took me a lot longer than usual to saw through the link, and when i finally cut it i had to twist it open to remove it from the rest of the chain. unlike with a smaller chain, to twist a link this large required a lot of blows with a hammer with the piece clamped in place.

stainless steel is a much harder metal than sterling silver, so i anticipated that it would require more effort, but it was even tougher than i imagined. 

once i got it out, i had to smash it back into shape which was equally as difficult.

and then after i got a mold made, i had some wax injections done to be sent off to the casting house.

more pictures of the process and a small injury =( later.

refining

here's the signet ring in process.

do you like my clamping device? i found that a stylus and duct tape worked quite nicely :p

there's just a bit more refining of the arrow tip, then it's off to the casting house.

wax sketches

here are some of my "sketches" on wax. a commission i'm working on is a signet ring for an archery enthusiast.

it involves tiny detailed work that i have to scratch in with an exacto knife, a scalpel and a dental tool under a magnifying glass.

after it's cast in sterling silver the plan is to fill the etchings with gold solder.

he's very excited :)

art is everywhere

well i had a nice family filled weekend. i hope you all did too.

i found that carving with purple wax is so much better than blue wax, you can get so much more detail. i did a test with the blue wax first, and it ended pretty badly. you'll see the details soon. i'll make sure to take photos before i send the ring off to be cast in sterling silver.

i went out for sushi with some friends and family in the past week (one of my favourite things). and i found myself pleased to see the sushi displayed in the shapes of hearts and flowers. oh the Japanese, they put art in everything.

long weekend

i'm off to see family for the weekend.
but of course i will also be working on some wax carvings.
hope you all have a good one!

some wax carving

since i had so many fans of my fertility charm at the Outdoor Show i decided to carve out a new smaller, lighter, and easier to clean version in wax so i can have it cast in sterling silver in time for the Cabbagetown Arts and Crafts show in September.

when i'm making wax pieces to be cast, i normally work in a very malleable brown wax (this one is covered in purple wax shavings) first so i can get the size and shape right before i move on to carving and refining the final form in the hard wax (the purple wax in this example) with files. the aqua coloured wax is from OCAD's wax injector which creates the form in wax if you've already had a mold made of your original piece.

this new fertility charm is a third of the weight of the original one, about half the size, and has a different texture on the back side.

i've gotten much faster at carving wax now. i'm quite pleased with myself.

p.s. this is my 100th post! crazy.