Water casting has been on my metal smithing bucket list for the best part of 3 years, 18 months ago I attempted to complete the first stage, seasoning the crucible, which didn't go to plan.

I may have got the numbering incorrect with the first time I attempted this 18 months ago, but I failed at the first hurdle, seasoning the crucible, which didn't go to plan, due to one of them being chipped, so I didn't feel safe proceeding with it and the other cracked during the process.

Taking this as a sign, I lost my bottle and never got around to ordering new crucibles, from a different supplier, until May of this year, as I was getting serious FOMO of the endless possibilities that casting offers jewellers.

In July I had a bright idea and borrowed some kit to kick it around, thinking 2 months was more than enough time, only to realise that I had a week left on the loan, so it was time to put my big gal panties on, face my demons and get busy.

With most things I'm finding out about learning new metal smithing techniques, although the process appears extremely simple and straightforward in reality, it has soooooo many unknown variables.  I mean how hard is it to melt some metal, something I can do surprising easily when I don't want to, either due to being impatient or a lose of concentration, and drop it into some water.

The first hurdle was to get over my fear of seasoning the crucible.

I started by heating up the crucible, which took forever, thinking I was doing something wroung I watched a couple of Instagram reels, before proceeding and after what seemed like an age, (40 minutes) it was done!!!

Seasoning the crucible with borax

I realised that in my zeal in ordering the crucible, thinking the bigger the better, I forgot that I'm will be battling physics, and a heat sinks.  Lesson learned!!!

Seasoned crucible with borax ready to melt scrap sterling silver

Once this first crucial step was completed I was doing a happy dance, as it was all systems go!!!!

Every metalsmith jeweller has a scrap pot, it's where we store all off-cuts, fillings and mistakes, and over the last 5 years you can see I've amassed quite a lot, but with the price of silver becoming ridiculous these are literally gold mines for us.

Scrap jar full of my sterling silver off cuts, filings and mistakes

Taking a few scraps and some borax powder, I fired up my blow torch, starting the process of melting the scrap sterling silver, heating up the whole crucible to start with before concentrating on the scrap metal.

This seemed to take forever, which personally I could not understand as when I'm soldering with the amount of heat I was applying the metal would have melted a whole lot sooner:
 

Melting scrap sterling silverr inn crucible with blow torch

Minutes go by and slowly the sterling silver scrap melt turning to a liquid ball, which I swirl around within the crucible before thinking which hand I need to hold the tongs and which hand to hold the blow torch to keep this molten state as I pour, realising, too late, that I'm kack handed, but in the moment I'm thinking it's all or nothing, and attempt to slowly pour the metal into the water.
 

My 1st attempt of water casting sterling silver

My very first attempt at water casting created this gold tited nugget, as I was getting to gribs using my none dominate left hand, to drip the metal into the water, and completely misjudged the flow rate.

The colour initially threw me, granted I was using scraps of sterling silver with some borax, but in all my years of melting sterling silver, both intentionally and accidently it has never turned this colour, so naturally I thought I'd done somethng wrong!!!

Then I remembered that sterling silver is 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper, and this colour was the copper coming through.

At this point, I wasn't too worried about the colour of the nugget, as I was going to use it to perfect my technique by re-melting it and repeating the process.

I tried a second and third time, with not much progress in creating the casting forms that I had seen others do on Instagram.

My father didn't give birth to a quitter, so I persevered with this method, referring to the university of Youtube, these guys where still making water casting look effortless.

But the more and more I tried I would see better slight improvements in the forms I was able to produce, but they seem to be very hit and miss.

My 4th and 5th attempts of water casting sterling silver

Realising that there are so many factors, and still not happy with the results I asked my network of jewellers for some hints and tips, which included not using a glass beaker but a metal bowl, as they are less likely to shatter with the heat, find the optimum height to drop the silver and dropping the temperature of the water.

All thiis advice from so many sources, I had brought a small metal bowl years ago, that I was just used as odd bob storage so that was covered, meant only one thing to my AuDHD brain, it's time to conduct an experiment:
 

Experimenting to see the height of the drop and the speed of swirling water on water cast sterling silver

This created some interesting results:

The results of experimenting with the height of the drop and the speed of swirling water on water cast sterling silver

To see the effects of temperatureon the water casting I had the bright idea of adding some water before putting it in the freezer, which I then completely forgot about:

My attempt to work with cold water, but forgot about it in the freezer

It's at this time I completely lose momentum in taking this further, but hit on the idea of getting a smaller crucible!

Which I ordered and it came with the flimsiest tongs, that were too big for the crucible to hold securely, so that's being returned whilst I find another supplier.

In the mean time, everyone is talking about casting syerling silver with different foods, including spaghetti and beans.

These are things I will try in the future, as should be easier than water casting, but I want to tryly explore the possibilities before moving on.

What's your thought?

Joolz xx

 

September 24, 2026