What are 'Metal & Rubber' molds & which is best for you? - 16 photos.

 These two kinds of processes have one thing in common, they can duplicate all of our hand-made, or CAD creations with total ease.

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 When a wax is injected in such as this, the numbers or letter are reversed, but that is not a problem. I modified the wax original and included 16 gemstones, just to add some more flavour.

 

 This is the metal mold that I honestly prefer from a rubber mold for larger disks. But, the costs are somewhat high as compared with the 'rubber mold' technique. 

 "Stars & Stripes plus a "Peace symbol".

"CASTALDO" is the commonly used company that makes 'rubber slices' for creating molds.

 The two (very hot) jaws of the vulcanizer squeezes the rubber slices together and encapsulate the original pattern. This process of 'heating and cooling' takes about 30 minutes.

 When slices of rubber are covering the original design the heat of the rubber softens and covers the item. Then afterwards, the caster will use a steel knife blade and remove the jewellery item. This is a skill that I won't go into in this essay, the end result is what you see here.

Now many original patterns can be duplicated regardless of the difficulty of the pattern.

From one rubber mold, I can now duplicate as many 'disks' as necessary.

 

The choice of the 'duplicating medium' is up to you to decide. The 'best medium' is the rubber mold for rings, as it is less expensive.

 The choice is up to you, the jeweller, as to which is more profitable. Each technique offers the same level of accuracy. For my opinion, if the ring has a 'cluster claw' design, I'd stay with the rubber mold. For a large & wide pattern as seen here, I would 100% consider the metal mold.