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Wax Plating

The Jewelry ACADEME does advanced CAD/CAM work for the jewelry industry. We primarily work in wax. When a piece of jewelry (specifically fine and very intricate jewelry) is produced in wax...visualizing the final product (to most of my clients) seems to be difficult, and only after the piece is cast in precious metal, finished and stones are set in place do they appreciate the intensity and intricacy of the design.

A good portion of our clients consists of well-known and very successful jewelry designers from all over the world. We have these days however shifted direction and started targeting retail store buyers and distributors.

Because of our product quality, diversity and turnaround times we are finding it increasingly important to show product in its final.

It is with this in mind I ask of all the experts in the field of "wax plating" for advise. I understand that plating wax results in the loss or reduction in detail...we can however compensate for that during the design stages if necessary.

I specifically need to know what the process involves and what tolerances to consider. If anyone out there has any kind of suggestion I would appreciate your comments and/or advice.

Jeff Boast
Jewelry ACADEME - Atlanta

The molds for CDs, with their billions of precision-sized pits, are made by electroplating nickel onto a form. So do not be concerned about plating intrinsically causing a loss of detail. But a lot depends on whether the side you show is the side that was against the mold being plated into/onto, or whether it's the other side. If it's the other side, the thicker the plating the more the smoothing effect.

But as long as fragility of your sample is not a problem, it should be relatively easy to coat it with a two-part silvering solution and then electroplate a thin coating onto it. You might talk to suppliers of silvering solutions, or electroforming companies like NiCoForm [a finishing.com supporting advertiser], or jewelry platers like Red Sky Plating [a finishing.com supporting advertiser].

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

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