I don't have an awful lot of equipment in my studio other than the basics and I wanted to find a way to 'cast' small pieces without investing in casting equipment. Firstly, this method is only intended for 'flat backed' shapes or designs that have no detail on the back. Secondly, the results can be rather rough and primitive but I think this adds to the overall appeal. It is not a new technique by any means, just one that I thought I should share because it is so simple therefore great for beginners.

You'll need:

A charcoal block
A small selection of burrs or carving tools
A torch (any torch that can melt small amount of silver/gold is fine, I use a handheld butane torch)
A steel bench block
A few scraps of silver/gold or some casting grain
Borax

I use this method to make lots of tiny little "puffy" hearts and it's fab. First of all, carve a basic shape into your charcoal block with a ball burr or whatever tools you have to hand. Charcoal is very soft so carving it is a doddle. In my case, I carve several little heart shapes into the charcoal with a ball burr. I then add some scrap silver or gold, enough to fill the carving. Sprinkle on some dry powdered borax or whatever flux you have to hand. This helps the metal to melt and flow. Now, using your torch, heat the metal until is starts to ball up and play the flame over the metal until it starts to adapt to the shape of the carving. Don't worry, most of the time at this stage the molten metal just wants to stay in a nice little ball shape but what you need to do is get your steel bench block and plonk it down over the metal. This should help the metal spread into the correct shape and give a nice flat back. After a few seconds, remove the bench block and dig out your metal. It might be reluctant to come out so you may have to dig into the surrounding charcoal. Sometimes the metal just pops out if you turn the charcoal block upside down and give it a whack. When you've got your little casting, pickle it as you usually would.

After pickling, I examine the 'casting' and decide if I want to do any additional finishing. Most of the time I file the little heart shapes just to give them a little more definition. I make the hearts into earring studs by soldering on an earring post. I then either polish them to a mirror shine or use my frosting wheel to make a nice frosted finish.

Simply, easy, slightly primitive but definitely effective. You can create all sorts of simple shapes with minimal equipment and cost. I've tried this with normal soldering blocks also and it works OK but I find the charcoal is much easier to work with with less clean up afterwards.

I'm going to post some pictures of some of the things I've made using this method in the next couple of days when I've taken some photographs.