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Interview with Darren Wallace, who designs and creates 9ct gold and sterling silver jewellery continued.
I really love the “Eye of the sea” pendant in your images. Can you outline the general process behind making something like that? Eye of the sea is a solid 9ct gold pendant with a solid Australian opal and is considered to be a floral design style. With this particular piece a solid Australian opal has been used as the centrepiece of the design. The first step is design. Designing a piece like “Eye of the sea” involves firstly drawing the outline of the opal shape on paper. Armed with a pencil, three dimensional shapes and angles are sketched around the opal until the design sketch is as you envisaged it. There are practical constraints that need to be considered at the design stage such as even weight distribution and positioning of the pendant hanging arrangement. This ensures both the pendant and stone will hang vertically when produced .Consideration also needs to be given to the number of claws and claw type in order to support the stone correctly. Construction of the wax model. As with all my floral designs, the piece must firstly be made as a wax model before being cast into metal. The opal stone backing plate is firstly cut from sheet wax. This is achieved by placing the stone on top of the wax sheet and running a scalpel around the stone periphery. To build the wax model around the wax backing plate involves joining a number of predefined wax shapes and curves and carving each one back until the overall design resembles the design drawing. This is an intricate process and requires a lot of patients with some designs having in excess of 30 individual shapes. “Eye of the sea” has approximately 15 individual shapes. As some of the shapes are only 1 to 2 mm in length, the whole process has to be performed under magnification. Some wax model constructions can take upwards of 15 hrs each to complete before it resembles the design on paper. Manufacturing the piece. The method used for replacing precious metal to the exact shape of the wax model is known as lost wax casting. This process is rather lengthy and today there are subcontractors how’s sole function is to cast products at reasonable costs and as a result I now have all my wax models cast this way.
A crude description of the lost wax casting process involves placing a 6” long metal hollow cylinder on a flat surface. Prior to placing the wax model into the cylinder, a length of wax is joined onto the wax model known as a sprew. The wax model is supported by the sprew and suspended in the middle of the cylinder. A special plaster compound is pored into the cylinder until it completely covers the wax model with only the wax sprew protruding from the top of the cylinder. When the compound sets the cylinder is placed upside down in an oven and heated. The wax melts and drains out from the sprew hole leaving an empty cavity impression of the wax model in the plaster compound. Using centrifugal casting methods, molten metal is then forced into the mould cavity. Once cool, the plaster compound is broken away and your design is now replicated in metal. Finishing. The lost wax casting process is such that the raw jewellery metal piece needs to be abraded prior to polishing. After cleaning up the casting, I then ensure the stone backing plate is flat and the stone will seat comfortably and the claws will easily encase the stone. The jewellery piece is then polished and stone set. How long would you typically spend on a pendant like that? Typically 1hour to crete a design sketch, 8 to 12 hrs
to construct a wax model and approximately 1.5 hrs to finish, polish and
set the piece. Where do you sell your work? I support a local gallery called “The Bridge Gallery” in Warrandyte Melbourne and have done so for the past 10 years. This exclusive boutique gallery displays only Australian handcrafted work and supports local artists. The “Ivanhoe Girls Grammar” school in Melbourne holds an annual art and craft exhibition which I support each year. I’m also currently negotiating with a gallery in Smith Street Fitzroy Melbourne called in.cube8r in which you pay rental for a 40 x 40 x 40 cm glass cube space to display only handcrafted work. The artist is responsible for decorating, maintaining and restocking the cube. There are no commissions or charges. It’s a wonderful concept. I’m hoping to also develop a web site soon to allow more people to view my work. If anyone is interested in viewing or purchasing any of my work please contact me at my email address dwally@netspace.net.au.
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