Bronze Rings, Cast from 3D Printed Patterns

As I promised yesterday, I finally cast the rings in bronze, which is my first attempt at making proper jewellery. I had previously shared pictures of the part tree here in the 3D Print Community, and this is where it ultimately led. I documented everything that led to this point with the foundry tag.

After clean-up, the rings look somewhat decent, though I didn't go crazy with polishing, since the castings are not of the greatest quality.

The part tree for the rings was one of my earliest, so it wasn't properly constructed like the part tree for my second run of miniature pewter chalices. Though I didn't need one this time, since the rings came out quite clean, next run will include a slag trap. The main sprue also needs to be a lot thicker.

You may have noticed that there are only two rings here, even though I printed three patterns. Well, thanks to the poor design of the part tree, one of the rings didn't cast completely. You will see what little there is of it when you watch the video of the entire process. My next step will be to put all the footage together and show the entire process for making these, from printing the patterns to cleaning up the castings.

They are actually the same size, which is a bit tight for my ring finger, but not so tight that I needed any sort of lubrication to get it off. After publishing the video of this process, I'll move on to seeing if the setting will actually hold a stone. Were these rings gold, it wouldn't be so tenuous, but bronze is tough stuff - tougher than mild steel, in fact.

Keep your eyes open for that video if you're interested in seeing exactly how all this was done!