What the WAX?

Do you know how to use wax for jewellery designs and more? During a wax course you will learn about different wax types, working methods, how to work with a casting house and more. Come try your hand at carving it is quiet, calm and a very interesting way to work.

Wax Carving is the process by which sculpture or item of jewellery is carved in a wax material so that it can be melted out of a mould and replaced with metal often a in silver, gold, brass or bronze. This can enable many copies to be made of the same item and intricate works can be achieved by this method. More modern methods are CNC and Printing with wax. It is considerd a core skill for jewellery manufacture.

Cire Perdue aka Lost Wax

This is the process where the original wax carving is completely lost in the burn out stage of casting where it get its name lost wax. This is an ancient method that is still used today by many modern designers, sculpters, goldsmiths and metal workers.

• The oldest known examples of this technique are approximately 6,500 years old (4550–4450 BC) and attributed to gold artefacts found at Bulgaria's Varna Necropolis.

• A copper amulet from Mehrgarh, Indus Valley civilization, in present-day Pakistan, is dated to circa 4,000 BC.

• Cast copper objects, found in the Nahal Mishmar hoard in southern Israel, which belong to the Chalcolithic period (4500–3500 BC), are estimated, from carbon-14 dating, to date to circa 3500 BC.[

• Other examples from somewhat later periods are from Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC