Jeremy Bush is an accomplished wax designer. The majority of his previous work is in the small sculptural field. It's his desire to learn the Lost Wax Casting process. Jeremy carved a grouper for a friend and we were going to use that wax pattern to teach the casting process. Jeremy also had a mold so getting duplicate waxes was no problem. We'll be casting two fish in the same flask. The next step will be to add wax "bails", these were designed as pendants. Once the wax bail has been added to each they will be sprued to the sprue base in preparation for the investment stage of the process.
The wax patterns, for two grouper pendants.
This is a photo of the two wax groupers attached to the sprue base. You can see that the blue wax "bails" have been attached.
This is another angle of the sprued waxes. This shot shows the "Sprue system" that feeds not only the fish but the large bails. Next step......Investment.
This is a photo of Jeremy at the bench. He's using the jeweler's saw to cut the casting from the sprue system and button.
And a nice close up of the casting being cut off of the sprue system and button. The button is the large mass that acts as a reservoir to feed the sprue system and casting as it solidifies. The button should be the last to solidify.