Metal Casting Zone

I make very fine quality miniature furniture for collectors around the world and have got to the point where I need to start making ormolu mounts for them. Some pieces can have anything up to 40 or 50 different castings that might only be used once so having my masters rubbered and cast is going to be very expensive.
I've tried Delft clay casting in silver which has worked very well to a point but it doesn't pick up the very fine detail I'd like. When you consider the castings could be as small as 2mm with very high definition you can see my problem.
Is there a way of casting my pieces at home without the need for loads of costly equipment? ie centrifuge, wax injector etc.
I'd be very grateful for some advice

to give you an idea of the scale I'm talking about this is a picture of one of my pieces 90mm tall

welcome to the forum. in short there is but!!! you will need to make some aluminium dies and cast your items in zinc. here is the problem .... it will may take you a week with an engraver to carve out your die for one item and the finished product will only be as good as your engraving.im just starting in this area myself but im only doing very simple items.

welcome to the forum, 40-50 castings to make one part? wow thats alot of little pieces.
Is there any way to combine them into one? would love to see some pictures of what your doing. I wonder if you could make a split mold like i had been doing to cast them in ??

Thanks very much. Not all my furniture would have so many castings but major especially French furniture can do. Have a look at my website www.chrismalcomsonminiatures.com and that'll give you an idea of the scale.
I tried making some out of wax but found the material hard to work with so have started using miliput which allows me to make much finer detail.
My research suggests the best method would be lost wax. As far as I can tell this throws up 3 major hurdles.
1/ Making rubber moulds to cast my wax models. Is there a way to do this without a 'vulcanizer'?
2/ Injecting my wax into the mould without the need for a 'wax injection machine'
3/ Casting my silver without buying a centrifuge machine.
If there are other more practical methods I could try I'd be delighted to give them a go.

Ill never complain about having to make small patterns again after seeing your work.
hurdle 1 silicone mold www.smooth-on.com/ look at the oomoo silicone
hurdle 2 wax injection a plastic suringe works out well just suck some wax out of a pot and squirt it in
hurdle 3 cintrifical casting can be beaten with head pressure and forming the mold so that it has long sprue and vent feeding the part/parts from the bottom up.
hurdle 4 burn out of wax...so far I havnt beaten this one, but i do question the clean cycle of my self cleaning oven....
another option may be vaccum casting but i havent explored this possibility yet.

You say you have had difficulty carving wax? have you tried the ferris file a wax? If you have a set of jewlers engravers you can easily work this stuff.

I thought you were making metal pieces like candelabras, pedestals and such. You are casting the hinges and hardware for some very,very nice looking wooden furniture.

You could check into steam casting for the head pressure. I'm not sure how you could tree some of the items so you could do several at one time. They just look so small.

Look through everything you can find on making jewelery and see what you think would work for you.

thanks a lot. Just the kind of practical solutions I was looking for. Ferris file wax? I've been using green wax which no good. I'll look into it. Thanks for your time

Hi Mrchrees
Pitty you don't live closer because I'd ask you to send me your parts I can do them for you probably ,the parts I understand you required cast would be the same as I am casting for my scale models in lost wax brass,did some items last month for 1 to 160 scale or N scale ,loco air horns. I can see your problem. certainly some problems cannot be solved without the purchase of some equiptment I,m sorry to say. Check out the waxes at the jewellery supply places there are many grades to be had the carving wases are different from the injection waxes. Aonemarine was spot on with suggestion of the RTV rubbers to make the moulds for the waxes I have made many rubbers like this with good results. From very fragile masters. some made from milliputty as you mentioned (GREAT STUFF)Let us know if you need any help further. Have to finish lunch and get back to my casting. Back later

Hi John, I'm sort of getting to grips with it. I've ordered the rubber. Someone suggested using a syringe to inject the wax into the mould. I'm sure I can make that work. The next job of course is making my investment flask. Not having a centrifuge I thought of making my sprues wider and just relying on head pressure to fill the moulds. What you think of my chances of pulling it off?

what silicone did you decide on?
this weekend I hope to do some experementing with vaccum casting, Ill make sure I let you know how it works out, I plan on useing a shop vac. Who knows might be the trick.