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Estimating how much silver to melt. This is the wrong way - it's best to weigh the wax (with specific gravity of 1) and multiply by the specific gravity of silver: 10.36. So if the wax pattern weighs 15 grams, 155.4 grams of silver will be needed plus some extra for the "button"; the excess silver that ensures a fully cast pattern and sprue during casting.

A wax ring sprued to a base and ready for the flask and investment

A steel flask mounted to the rubber base. This is now ready for the pouring of the "investment", the special refractory plaster that can withstand the high heat of a kiln.

Mixing the powdered investment. The proper mix is 40ml of water for every 100g of powder (following the instructions for "Kerr Satin-Cast"), but sometimes I'll just estimate the consistency to be like pancake batter.

The poured flask.

The investment dries quickly, within 10 minutes. Here the rubber base has been popped off and the flask is ready for the kiln and "burn-out" of the wax which leaves the mold ready for silver injection.

Wax is burned out of the flask in a kiln over a period of several hours depending on the size of the flask. This size takes 5 hours to completely eliminate the wax: the temperature is set to 300F for 1 hour, 700F for 1 hour, 1350F for 2 hours, then back down to stabilize on the casting temperature for at least an hour which is 900-1000F for silver. Intricate molds are cast hotter so the metal can work its way into the finer parts. These beefy rings are generally cast at the lower end of the range for silver.

The crucible charged with casting grain and ready for melting. The flask is not yet mounted - when ready to cast it will be moved directly from the kiln to the cradle behind the crucible.

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This is the style I go for; plenty of asymmetry and imperfection which can be tricky to pull off. The piece should scream, "designed and hand crafted on purpose" and not, "a knucklehead botched this". It's a tightrope. To paraphrase the great David St. Hubbins, "there's a fine line between clever and.....stupid."

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24K gold ring of power. I cast this in 2000 when gold was under $300/ounce. It is now just under $2000/ounce which makes it unaffordable for hobbyists like me. Silver hovers around $23/ounce.