COB Bezels and mounts

[TheTreasureAddict]

Hey Guys,

A friend of mine has made some beautiful stuff just wanted to show it off here in the forum. Let me know if your interested also. These are some of the most beautiful detailed bezels. She has one where the octopus has a leg looped through and hole in a coin, that one is not pictured but amazing. Anyway hope you enjoy!

CRACKBADGER

 

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[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

Beautiful , I love the octopus. How much? Thanks CRACKBADGER.
Ossy

 

[divewrecks]

The emerald and mermaids setting is kinda cool. Thanks for sharing the pics....

Ossy, you are going to need some long tentacles to wrap around that 1652 eight.....

Stan

 

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

The emerald and mermaids setting is kinda cool. Thanks for sharing the pics....

Ossy, you are going to meed some long tentacles to wrap around that 1652 eight.....

Stan

And I will need a 1/2 inch gold chain to hold it Any news on Stu's new book?
CRACKBADGER all the cobs look real, are they from the Atocha? Love the gold octopus.
Ossy

 

[TheTreasureAddict]

Beautiful , I love the octopus. How much? Thanks CRACKBADGER.
Ossy

Hey Ossy,

It depends on the size of the COB, if you provide the COB and type of gold really. If you have a pic of the COB and name what type of gold you like it I can get an estimate for you.

The emerald and mermaids setting is kinda cool. Thanks for sharing the pics....

Ossy, you are going to meed some long tentacles to wrap around that 1652 eight.....

Stan

And I will need a 1/2 inch gold chain to hold it Any news on Stu's new book?
CRACKBADGER all the cobs look real, are they from the Atocha? Love the gold octopus.
Ossy

Yes all the Coins are very real with COA's from the ATOCHA. I am getting a 1/2 reale and 8 reale done for me and my son. Not sure on the which design just yet or if I will make a custom one. My friend is amazing and can do just about any design. She also has a share in the Spanish Main Treasure Co. so she has plenty of ATOCHA coins if you would like to purchase a coin for the bezel from her. Glad you like them, I knew you guys would!

CB

 

[divewrecks]

It depends on the size of the COB, if you provide the COB and type of gold really.

Sam's '52 is a little bigger than the typical 8R Atocha slug. Gold shouldn't be a problem though. I hear nuggets are strewn all across the outback...

Stan

 

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

It depends on the size of the COB, if you provide the COB and type of gold really.

Sam's '52 is a little bigger than the typical 8R Atocha slug. Gold shouldn't be a problem though. I hear nuggets are strewn all across the outback...

Stan

The '52 will stay in it's display box, I may sell it when Stu puts it in his new book, Maybe?
Stan, there is plenty of gold nuggets still waiting to be found, You may have to visit down under
CRACKBADGER. How much for the size of one reale in 14k with green emeralds as eye's on the octopus,
Cheers, Ossy

 

[divewrecks]

The '52 will stay in it's display box, I may sell it when Stu puts it in his new book, Maybe?

Just remember I get first right of refusal of it goes up for sale.

Stan

 

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

The '52 will stay in it's display box, I may sell it when Stu puts it in his new book, Maybe?

Just remember I get first right of refusal of it goes up for sale.

Stan

It has your name on it, you would be the first to know
Sam

 

[TheTreasureAddict]

It depends on the size of the COB, if you provide the COB and type of gold really.

Sam's '52 is a little bigger than the typical 8R Atocha slug. Gold shouldn't be a problem though. I hear nuggets are strewn all across the outback...

Stan

The '52 will stay in it's display box, I may sell it when Stu puts it in his new book, Maybe?
Stan, there is plenty of gold nuggets still waiting to be found, You may have to visit down under
CRACKBADGER. How much for the size of one reale in 14k with green emeralds as eye's on the octopus,
Cheers, Ossy

Ossy,

Would you like Atocha emeralds or just any uncut emeralds or cut emeralds? Atocha emeralds are expensive even small ones. Just let me know and ill get the estimate.

CB

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

I'll be casting up a 14kt. 1698 Mexico 4 escudo royal next week if everything goes right. I forgot after I put it all together to be cast to attach a loop for a chain to the top, so will probably have to put together a bezel for it. I may also do one for the 4 real coin I am getting soon.

You may be able to get a small Columbian emerald for pretty cheap.

 

[divewrecks]

I forgot after I put it all together to be cast to attach a loop for a chain to the top, so will probably have to put together a bezel for it.

Any problem with just brazing a loop on if it comes out the way you wanted? I look forward to seeing your results. If you could post a pic of your rubber mold and the wax model that would be cool and maybe would encourage some other experimenters....(like me)

Stan

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

Yeah I might just braze a loop onto it. It is a test of the equipment, and to get a project grade out of the way. There were a few imperfections I will go over when I post pictures of it.

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

My camera is acting weird now and I will have to troubleshoot it. The mold appears to have not got enough metal into part of it, and it blew out the letter L in Carolvs and undercut part of the shield. I also put a little mark on the back from accidently dropping it onto a wax burner. Seems thick and came out to 13.7 grams with the missing gold in one area. Not bad, but needs some improvement on the casting technique.

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

I think I may go for a recast in two weeks on it.

 

[divewrecks]

Hey all right! I appreciate you taking the time to share those CS....

How many sprue wires were attached to the model?
What type of investment material?
Did you use vacuum and vibration either before and/or after pouring the investment material?
Mold temperature when casting was made?

Would like to see what your rubber mold looks like and the built up ready-to-pour wax model if your camera mellows out.

I look forward to seeing and hearing of further exploits!

Stan

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

Unfortunately, I got a call yesterday from my teacher saying that all the investing is done for the semester because they are tearing down the classroom shop and moving it into a permanent building. So I will not be able to recast it unless by some miracle, she still lets people invest on friday.

I think my problem was that I needed a little more metal in it, and to make it a little thinner. My sprues went into the edge and it stood up parallel in the mold. Sprues were a little small, maybe 1/12th to 1/16th. I had three of them. If I do it again, I will rotate the coin 30 degrees from the parallel and put a 4th sprue up through the middle of the cross on the reverse flan.

Looking back at it and from what I saw, the sides didn't match up good enough before I put them together. I might also use a bees wax paste to help seal the sides together. There looks like there were a couple issues with the legend, but I did it pretty quick. It is an interesting look at a coin probably never produced in this condition.

I'm going to throw it in the tumbler now to smooth it out. If I can't recast I will set it into a bezel and use it as a placeholder for my friend to see if he likes it. Then I will recast it later when I have the equipment available again.

I really wanted to do a greek stater for another friend and some Spanish money chain links, but I am out of time. We used a two stage vaccume process on the investment. The flasks I think were cast at around 1100 using a decent centrifugal unit and a high volume tip b-gas acetelene heat source. The process of making the wax uses my old 1990's process of making individual wax sides with stamps and a bakable clay resin mold.

 

[divewrecks]

CS, thanks for taking time to post the additional info. That sucks about your mint getting shut down. The college jewelery making course I was in back in the early 80's was shut down too when I had a cool project piece in work. The renegade teacher I had had gotten in trouble for making an unauthorized "tap" into the art building's natural gas supply. He was already on the faculty black list when it was discovered that he allowed another student to make a marijuana pipe in the class. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't think the course was ever offered again and our meager equipment was trashed.

I can't say I have much experience with sprue configuration other than trial and error, but I probably would have tried the same thing you did first. How much total gold weight did you have in the crucible? Do you think volume of material you used had any effect on your results?

I didn't think about your wax model as being created by attaching two sides together. I thought that you could make a two piece wax mold. Again, I am ignorant on this aspect. All the wax models I made were pretty much hand shaped, no wax casting.

How do you think your surface condition could be improved? Do you think the burnout was thorough and clean?

I hope you get a chance to give it another try. Thanks for the inspiration. Gets me thinking....

Stan

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

When I realized it did not cast properly I just hit it with a rotary wire brush for awhile and then maybe a bit of polish, and I trimmed it and added a rough reeded edge to the outside.

I liked everything about this process. It's too bad the flan was too thick, it didn't cast all the way (possibly a sprue issue alone,) and it was a little uneven in places. All this could be improved upon. The 2 escudos I cast up came out pretty easy, and I did a Lima 4 escudo a long time ago that came out allright.

I think a few of the letters might be improved upon, and the boarder on the front looks a little too wide on the right side. The crown is not to specs, but we may never really know what the crown actually looked like on this coin. Small vaitations in the crowns of early Mexican escudos may signify the different diemakers who worked under the mint superintendant, the way the dot patterns do on Lima cobs. There is also an extra cross on the reverse side in the legend.

The thin dot pattern boarders on Mexican gold cobs are extremely hard to make and required a lot of work and some troubleshooting to get it to go. The coin looks better and more even after some machine tumbling, but still has the lost parts. The tressure and cross turned out pretty well and probably is better than any original in its uniformity, though it was also made by hand. I can even see part of a fingerprint cast in the gold on one part.

I had 27 grams 14kt gold and I think 4 grams of zinc were added as a flux aid.

 

[divewrecks]

Hey CS, thought you might like to see this.....

http://cgi.ebay.com/BOLIVIA-IRON-COIN-DIE-50-CENTAVOS-1908-MM-POTOSI-RARE-/180507705663

Stan