3-D Printing For Lost Wax (Investment) Casting

3D Fabrication
#1

Hi All

I am looking forward to taking any upcoming 3-D Design and Printing Classes.

Are our 3-D printers capable of generating wax or suitable patterns for lost wax (investment) casting.

To comply with COVID safety, are SKYPE classes being offered?

Do we have Skype classes for the 3-D modeling software and can this be used remotely. If so, then how?

I do know that for various reasons, investment casting within the Jewelry Lab is limited to Noble metals. With that being said, do any of our members perform brass/bronze investment casting at home. If so, are they willing to take on small (paid) projects?

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#2

Our FormLabs printer is capable of printing to castable wax. However, the FormLabs printer is down, or not repairable, or not going to be repaired, or too hard to support … or some such situation which makes it currently unusable. According to @maxk68,

As for casting - unless things have changed, at DMS we have the ability to cast in bronze (but NOT in brass). @JBluJkt can confirm this.

@Liz_Becker has a brass casting studio and might be willing to take a commission job.

#3

Thanks for the responses! Are we limited to certain bronze alloys?

#4

I also have some PLA wax filament if you are wanting to get this done really quick

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#5

Zinc is the main culprit, same in Metal Shop for welding Not sure about Lead as it has a much higher boiling point at which it will gasify (melting/boiling point of Zn = 788F/1665F Lead 621F/3180F). I know I’ve had a class that casts pewter, but not sure what the alloy was. There are Lead free pewter alloys.

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#6

There are a million classes on Youtube for learning Solidworks and Fusion360, so online classes would be redundant.

Our members can get a free annual license for Solidworks (https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/solidworks-2020-licenses-for-dallas-makerspace/53371) and Fusion360 is free as well for noncommercial, small-scale use. Tinkercad is free too, if you’re a beginner.

We’ve got the full premium version of Solidworks on the jump server if you need its fancy features or if you need to use the software for commercial purposes.

Dental laboratories do investment castings every day, so maybe hit up one of your local dental lab technicians if you’re offering paid work? They should be able to cast in silver, gold, and various alloys of those.

#7

Re: 3D printing your blank. FWIW, @JohnK made a 3D print, made a (probably silicon) mold from it, and poured a wax to use in the investment class we took together. @Terrence taught that class.

Do you already have the metal?

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#8

Thank you for the mention, John. :wink: I would be happy to assist anyone needing production casting with some caveats. Time frame, job size, difficulty, etc. I am available to offer

a consult. Miss everyone a lot. Loss of vehicle coinciding with a back injury last year cost me my mobility for a bit, or you would have seen a lot more of me. Don’t write me off just yet. I still plan

to “retire” there. Ha ha. Yuk yuk.

Sincerely,

Liz Becker,

Formerly of Weirdworks Studio LLC,

Now of Ormolu Atelier LLC

214-985-7184

John_Marlow

    July 22

Our FormLabs printer is capable of printing to castable wax. However, the FormLabs printer is down, or not repairable, or not going to be repaired, or too hard to support … or some such situation which makes it currently unusable. According to @maxk68,

Status of SLA printing?
Form labs are down getting the new resin printer setup will be a priority

As for casting - unless things have changed, at DMS we have the ability to cast in bronze (but NOT in brass). @JBluJkt can confirm this.

@Liz_Becker has a brass casting studio and might be willing to take a commission job.

#9

You may also be able to use a wax PLA in the PolyPrinters. Some quick googling shows a few different options, and I know Max has mentioned it in the past, but I’m not proficient enough to know how well it would work.

#10

Some Internet denizens have had success with “Lost ABS” investment casting.

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#11

I succussfully did this with the Formlabs and with help in Jewelery, made silver rings. Blue Jacket may want do it for you, but his Talk name escapes me atm…

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#12

@JBluJkt …

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