Machineable wax - answer to Ian's question

Hello Ian,
The reason most jewelers cut machineable wax
rather than gold is simple. I really don't want my
mill
all messed up with tiny gold chips, or even silver or
platinum. Reclaiming and remelting the chips would be
a very time consuming and wasteful pastime so,
instead,
I cut the original in wax and do a simple lost wax,
investment casting. I do a lot of custom, one off,
pieces and this seems to work pretty well.
For coats of arms rings I only cut the top in wax
and then join it to another wax shank that I pull out
of a silicone wax injected mold. A couple weeks past,
I
delivered a 5 carat diamond bracelet with a
sculptured,or contoured animal in each link. The five
carats of diamonds were 100, 2.5mm stones. The mill
actually cut 400 tiny prongs and the 100 stone seats
at a 45 degree angle. As always, when the seats and
prongs are milled, the stones were very easy to set.
This CNC work is a boon to me after having hand
carved jewelry for nearly 30 years.
I use a Taig mill which was about the third CNC
out of their factory. Recently upgraded it to bi-polar
Sanyo Denki, 180 oz. steppers and Gecko G201 drives on
all four axes. What an improvement! It runs smoother,
faster, and more accurately. Got all the upgrade stuff
from Jon Hollcraft at mendonet.com. He was a wonderful
help and mentor - still is, for that matter. An
example
of speed improvement is the badges I cut for members
of
the San Francisco Fire Dept. Before the upgrade, it
took 12 hours to cut a badge. Since the upgrade, it
takes 5 hours.
If you have any other jewelry related questions,
I'll be happy to try to answer them.
Bill Reidsema