If youâre getting into ring-making using the lost wax casting method, your soldering iron or heat pen is your main workhorse tool. Yes, getting the right soldering iron is important, but it's not something that needs to be overcomplicated.
Unlike traditional wax carving tools, a heat pen allows you to work fluidly using the modern, ever-popular build up technique that I use to handmake all my Sunny on a Cloud jewellery. We will discuss a few key features that your wax heat pen/soldering iron must have in order to handmake detailed, flowy, or molten rings and pendants. And we'll discuss the things that don't matter.
If youâre a beginner learning to make wax jewellery at home using a soldering iron, this guide will help you choose the best tool for building the type of gold and silver jewellery you actually want.
Youâll often see the terms wax pen and soldering iron used interchangeably.
Wax pens/heat pens: Are designed specifically for wax jewellery work, often more precise.
Soldering irons: Originally for electronics, but widely used in lost wax work.
Â
First things first: I create all of my wax jewellery using a $50 soldering iron from a car shop, and a $66 wax pen.
Sunny on a Cloud designs are known for their intricacy and fine detail - yet do I use a $300 setup? No. It's not necessary.
Two features are necessary to have in your soldering iron or wax pen:
1. It MUST be temperature adjustable. If you are new to working with jeweller's wax, you may not know that different temperatures will cause the wax to behave in different ways. If your tool only has one temperature setting, youâll constantly be fighting against it, either melting too much or not enough. The way I get such incredible detail on my rings is by understanding the way wax behaves when exposed to different temperatures, and using this to my advantage when building wax ring models. We go over this in detail in my Lost Wax Jewellery course. We need a range of temperatures to make the wax do a range of things, so we can build a range of features to create beautiful, functional jewellery. So, it is imperative that our soldering iron has a temperature control option.Â
2. It must reach a decent temperature. Mine reaches up to 450C. I never go that high, but I will go as high as roughly 350C. Now, it's important to remind you here that the temperature of the wax isn't that gravely important. You just need to be able to get that sh*t flowing.
Nothing crazy will happen, the wax won't implode, and your design won't fall to pieces if you work at 250C vs. 270C. The temperature is important, but don't get too caught up in the specific number. Â
Yes, the melting point of blue wax is only 115C. But that's the point where it starts to melt. We want flowy molten metal goodness. We can't achieve that look in our gold and silver wax cast jewellery if we can only juuuust get the wax to begin the process of melting.
đ¨ This is where a lot of beginners go wrong - they try to work at the melting point. But the melting point refers to the beginning of the melting process. You need your wax to be fluid - not beginning to become fluid.
It's also important to note that jeweller's wax just isn't that sensitive. It's not going to implode if you accidentally heat it 50C past where you intended. Just turn your soldering iron back down and wait a moment. People are afraid of what will happen when they overheat their wax. The answer is: nothing bad, really. It doesn't damage the integrity of the wax. Around the 300-350 mark if will start to fizzle/pop/burn. I find I use a range between 115 - 300, depending on what feature I'm building (ring band, claw settings, bezel settings etc).
So, if you pick a soldering iron that only has a range up to 150C - that ain't gonna work. For starters, that only gives you a very small window of temperature that will actually melt the wax. Secondly, that small window is only where the wax starts to melt. You need to get it flowing like a liquid, which requires more heat.
So, if you pick a soldering iron that only has a range up to 150C - that ain't gonna work. For starters, that only gives you a very small window of temperature that will actually melt the wax. Secondly, that small window is only where the wax starts to melt. You need to get it flowing like a liquid, which requires more heat.
I love my soldering iron station because it ticks all the boxes for working with jeweller's wax. It's temperature adjustable, it reaches a high heat, and it's cheap. I've been making jewellery with it for 3+ years now, and I've only had to replace the pen once.
Now, the reason I use both a soldering iron station and a finer tip wax pen is to create intricate detail. I use both interchangeably whilst building one ring or pendant. I would never build a whole ring using a fine tip wax pen - it would take way too long. But I love using my wax pen to build fine details, texture, and stone settings. I can control the wax pen temperature in much shorter bursts, whereas the soldering iron is best used for longer stretches of work as it takes a moment to heat up and down. We discuss the difference between the two tools in depth inside my jewellery course, and when to switch between them!
âđź Notes and FAQs:
â Should I get a soldering iron with adjustable tips so I can create different shapes for my jewellery?
Tbh, I've never found any use for them. You can see how detailed my rings are, but I just use the same old tip. It's not about the tip, it's about how you manipulate the jeweller's wax.
â What if the tip of my soldering iron gets a black/burnt/gunky buildup?
It's not a big deal. Clean it off with a scourer. I've still cast wax models with a bit of black gunk in them - never had an issue.
âď¸ Donât get a rechargeable soldering iron. Making wax models for lost wax casting requires long sessions. You'll be annoyed as hell when the battery keeps dying (learned this through experience).
âď¸ Pick a lightweight soldering iron that's not overly large. Remember, you're making jewellery, and jewellery is small. You don't need a soldering iron big enough to fix a car. I mention lightweight again from a comfort perspective - if you're going to work with your hands for a few hours at a time, you want it to be comfortable.
