Stone casting process with invisible setting by Dr Hubert Schuster
Dr Hubert Schuster - Jewellery TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE HUBERTSCHUSTER Creazzo - Vicenza, Italy
Abstract
Casting with stones in general has now been known of and practised for many years, although great progress has been made and importance gained in more recent years, due to rationalisation in production and increase in quality.
The main reason for developing the stone casting process with invisible setting was the need to drastically decrease costs with the use of synthetic stones or cubic zirconia. In fact, these stones are extremely suitable as their measurements are usually regular and they are already prepared for invisible setting.
Keywords
Invisible setting, cubic zirconia, diamonds, ruby, sapphire, synthetic stones, princess cut, resistant, pressure of metal, purity, Square, rectangular, hexagonal, pentagon, acute angels, groove, girth, stone grooving machine, modelling in wax, model, prototype, rapid prototyping, Cad/Cam, modelling in metal, geometrical shapes, lathe, milling machine, support net, plate and wire, rubber mould, silicon, caoutchouc, vulcanisation, shrinkage, RTV, release cut, injection wax, plastic, flexible wax, special tool, positioning the stones, liquid or pasty wax, small space, magnifying glass, naked eye, embedding, liquid additive, coat, special investment, mixing instructions, boric acid, steam de-waxing, burnout oven, burnout cycle, burnout time, casting temperature, alloys, de-oxidising agent, centrifuge, suction/pressure, melting, palladium with gold, cool gradually, thermal shock, flask cooling time, finishing, automated systems, media, compounds.
Introduction
For many years now I have been researching new solutions and procedures to improve and rationalise the production of jewellery, especially in the lost wax casting field.
Excellent results have been obtained in the following procedures:
modelling techniques in wax, resin and alternative materials; casting of filigree or other extremely thin objects;casting of chains or objects with connecting pieces;union of different metals such as platinum, white gold, yellow gold, silver, etc., through casting (Bimetal casting) shiny surface casting;platinum casting and working techniques;casting with stones: diamonds, rubies, sapphires, garnets, synthetic stones and cubic zirconia and also emeralds cast with palladium white gold.
Owing to the need to reduce costs of invisible setting with cubic zirconia or synthetic stones, I started to look for a solution to replace hand-setting as this is too costly compared with the price of stones. However, this method is also extremely suitable for diamonds, rubies and natural sapphires.
This research project was supported by the firm Swarogem Austria, which also supplied the stones for several experiments. In the meantime, this method of setting has already been introduced by us to several firms in Italy, Turkey, Thailand, Indonesia and the USA. which are using it successfully.
These are the advantages:
Setting stones in wax (invisible) is easy to learn and very fast compared to setting by hand. Example: it would take approximately 6 hours to set a ring with 30 stones by hand, whereas setting a ring with 30 stones in wax takes approximately 20 minutes.Stones are set more securely and the risk of breakage or losing stones decreases dramatically.This system can be carried out with standard casting equipment and would need only a few special tools and pieces of equipment which are not expensive.Princess Cut diamonds, rubies, sapphires, cubic zirconia and synthetic stones can be used for this system and it is possible to cast in red, white or yellow gold and even silver.Only a minimum training session of a few days is required to transfer this technology and start the system of casting with invisible setting in wax.
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