My next major tool purchase is going to be a wax injector. Yes, bask in the glory. Naturally I launched an exhaustive search for the cheapest and lowest-tech out there and came up with this:
It’s tiny! It’s cute! It’s… missing a lid. You have to inject up. How do you adjust the pressure? How do you keep dust and gross studio debris out? I’m so confused.
Then I found what I had in mind:
It has a hand pump to pump in your pressure. It has a front injector so you can use both hands to keep your mold together and steady. It has knobs and dials and lights sticking out and, LO! Is that a toggle switch on the left there? The dumbest part of course is the fact that nobody seems capable of showcasing their product with the correct aspect ratio. Probably one dumbass marketing dude posted a squashed image and everyone copied. It’s disconcerting and dulls the pointy parts of my brain to even think about it. Luckily, I’ve seen them before and they look a lot more like this:
Correct aspect ratio. The red is kick ass and I would order it in a second if I didn’t need an air compressor to run it. It also has toggle switches.
Now I have to figure out what wax I need. I’ve been looking at Kerr “Super Pink” wax, which says that it is supposed to be the most carvable (I need to do additional carving once I shoot my waxes) and the wax I’ve used in the past has always been very goopy and sticky, gumming up my wax tool and making things hard. I also need to have a vibrant or darker color in order to see the details. The only trouble with the Super Pink is that it does not say that it is very flexible and I have very tricky molds with pieces that pop out the top and vent out the sides that produce lacey waxes with crazy sprue paths. I practiced with my studiomate’s wax injector and it took me a LOT of tries to even pry a ring out of my mold without tearing it to bits. Her wax seemed pretty flexy.
I don’t know if any jeweler types read this but I’d love to hear recommendations. There are so many wax options to choose from.
As my Christmas gift to the Internets, I present this:
It’s the Arbe 110 volt Mini Wax Injector with Hand Pump. PLEASE COPY THIS IMAGE FOR YOUR WEBSITE. You have my express permission and endorsement.
UPDATE on wax injector here.
came across this post wile searching for wax machines. Thought I would comment that I use a very nice carvable injection wax called Freedman Carvable Purple http://www.contenti.com/products/casting/167-062.html
. I know this post is older but thought i would still share.
Thanks for the recommendation. I started with Super Pink (Kerr), which I didn’t like at all, then I did actually get some Carvable Purple. It wasn’t bad—it certainly was easier to look at and see detail with but I still found it to be fairly gummy. Then I ran into an “old-school” jeweler who did all his wax work using Sierra Red (both carving AND injection), a wax that comes in big blocks and has a fairly low melting point. So I have that now in my injector. It’s pretty much what I am looking for as far as being carvable after injection, but it is hard to work if it is warm outside (not like that ever happens in Portland..) and then very brittle if you let it sit. Brittle is great for carving (I’m pretty light-handed) but makes it hard to remove from the mold. I’m liking it though and will stick with it for the time being.