mas's jewelry shop

This period I didn’t choose an elective because of my own stupidity, luckily I have done the Digital Creatures elective in January so I won’t miss any ECTS. For these plusweeks I have a it more time so I wanted to do something special. I recently bought some supplies to make mouth jewelry, and wanted to exploit this during the PLUS weeks. I have always been interested in grillz as they are called, grillz are a set of silver or gold teeth to wear over your own teeth for a shiny cool effect. There are often worn by rappers and they are often loaded with diamonds.

In the past I have tried to work on some mouth jewelry (grillz) but I always stopped because I had some more important stuff to do, so I thought these PLUS weeks would be perfect to finally try it out. I also watched a lot of youtube videos on how to make jewelry/mouth jewelry. There are a lot of ways and I have found out that you can use 3D filament especially for casting iron. This way I can, if I am good enough at polishing and finishing the raw silver or gold product, try to mix 3D design with jewelry. For example I could print out letters and paste them on the wax teeth to add an extra layer. The thing is before I can add 3D printed stuff I have to know the basics, and that is why I want to choose making a silver grill (silver mouth jewelry) for my PLUS plan.

A while ago I did research on making the grillz and jewelry making in general. I bought casting wax and supplies to make molds, I have a Dremel at home to do the finishing and polishing. I have also contacted a caster and I can send him my wax so he can cast it. I basically have everything to make real mouth jewelry but I never had the time so I thought now would be the perfect time to start. I already asked the caster an estimate of the time it will take to actually cast the teeth so I know if it will be possible to choose as my PLUS plan. Also because I don’t have an elective this month I can use more time for my PLUSplan which makes it more realistic

Research the wax/casting basics 10 June

Making dental impression & mold 11 June

Making wax teeth (trial & error) 12, 13, 14 June

Sending to caster 14 June

While waiting for teeth to come back I research the 14 - 21 June

Finishing and polishing part

Finishing the teeth 21 - 24 June

Deadline 25 June

Making the dental impression

Removing dental impression

Pouring and mixing stone

Making the wax grillz

These parts are the most important parts of making mouth jewelry. The mold has to be perfect otherwise they won't fit. With the wax part it's important to add a lot of detail because the wax is way easier to edit than the silver or gold.

Whole process explained

Finishing the raw material

Sanding the teeth/grillz

Helpful video about whole process

Polishing the teeth/grillz

Unfortunately, the 4 front teeth don't fit but the 3 teeth one does. :)

It's kind of hard to make a photo not looking silly but enjoy

My goals were to learn about the wax and the casting methods. I researched a lot and I know which parts of the process are most important. I also wanted to learn how to sand and polish precious metals. In that I also succeeded, i will have to do it a lot more and get experience in sanding and polishing but I know all the basics I need to know. I am also much more confident to try 3D printing the casting material because I now know I can finish it.

I have even made a new order at the caster to try the one that didn't fit again.