Overview

Participants will work with a range of different waxes; soft wax, pink dental wax sheets, blue wire wax, brown pliable wax as well as liquid wax for dipping and creating hollow forms. You will also use a range of tools including burrs, wax carving files and wax working tools.

Suitable For

Participants interested in increasing their jewellery knowledge
Participants who have undertaken the Introductory Jewellery and Intermediate Jewellery Short Courses

Topics Covered

Applications for different types of wax; soft, hard, wire and melted dipping wax

Wax carving, forming, shaping and joining

Use of appropriate tools

Carving a ring in wax

Setting stones in wax

Lost wax casting process

Commercial casting locations

OH&S considerations

Course Outcomes

Participants will:

Gain skills and knowledge of the wax working process, enabling them to continue using the basic hand tools from home
Make a number of wax experiments, prototypes and have a sterling silver item of jewellery to take home
connect with commercial casting companies to enable them to continue at home and throughout the course

Please Note: Due to Occupational Health and Safety reasons, participants will not be using the casting machine themselves. The machine will be operated by a Melbourne Polytechnic jewellery staff member and may not be operated during class time.

Melbourne Polytechnic jewellery staff will cast one piece in Sterling Silver for each participant and then students will be encouraged to engage with industry for the casting of any remaining waxes.

You will have the first 3 classes to make your piece that is going to be cast in sterling silver; missing these classes will mean that you do not receive your item in silver. Your piece needs to be completed before the end of week 3. If you miss the first session, you will only have classes 2 and 3 to finish your piece, which you will receive back in Sterling Silver. If you miss all 3 sessions, then you do not get a piece in silver, or any metal. You will only have wax, and if you want to cast it in metal, then you will have to facilitate this in your own time and expense.

Transfers and Refunds

A refund or transfer is only possible if you apply at least 5 business days prior to the course commencing. A standard handling charge of 10% of the advertised course fee will be deducted from each refund. Requests for refunds or transfers made within five business days of the course start date will not be eligible.

Please Note:

When enrolling into this course under “Available Sessions” below, you must use a personal email address as your primary email address. You will not be able to receive your qualification with a work email address. My eQuals (the qualification platform) will not accept a work email.

Students who require a carer/Support Worker to accompany them in class are requested to notify Short Courses of this before they enrol into the course by contacting us on 9269 8615.

This is essential due to limitations on class size and space.

This requirement is compulsory, regardless of whether students are providing their own carer or requesting one from Melbourne Polytechnic.

Please note that additional paperwork may be necessary to approve your carer's access to campus facilities.

Requirements

Basic jewellery knowledge and skills, such as those gained through our Introduction to Jewellery short course. You are required to have had some experience using jewelers tools and working with metal in the following ways to get the most out of this Wax Working short course - Saw Piercing, Drilling, Filing and Sanding/Finishing metal and Soldering.