The K-Z has about 1oz (not troy) 14K gold in a big chunk. It was scrap- not stolen. It has been melted into a big “glob”.
Any ideas how to make a ring, without using one of those centrifugal-casters and probably without a circular-mold (although I have a big can of the “red” dental wax, and a box of the “dark green” stick wax). The red is a lower temp wax, the green is almost impossible to work with, but I like the smell.
Can the glob be hammered into a ring, without much sticking to the face of the hammer? They used to make rings from coins this way, back in the day, though I’d hate to drill it and create more gold scraps.
If I had a big spoon and a map-gas setup, could I pour molten Ag + borax into a flat plaster with wax mold and then just bend it into a circle? Like…make the original design flat and then bend it into a ring? Will it burn through plaster?
Just do it with a blowtorch and a mold. Easy and fast. 14k gold melts at 947oC; plaster should hold up at that temp, at least long enough to pour in the gold and solidify.
Yes, you can, and you don’t even need a mold. Just get a tapered mandrel, lob off a chunk of the gold, punch the mandrel through it, and begin hammering down the mandrel. Gold is extremely malleable, and can be hammered down to about 100,000th of an inch thick.
Hammering it down on a mandrel is also generally preferred for hand made gold pieces, as you eliminate the possibility of voids internal to the structure.
If you just google ‘Jewelers Mandrel’, you come up with a bunch of decent hits.
Melting and casting in not generally necessary, unless you are trying to refine the gold, or alloy it.