Lost-wax casting, also known as investment casting, precision casting, or cire perdue (French for “lost wax”), is a process by which a duplicate sculpture is cast from an original sculpture. The oldest known examples of this technique are approximately 6,500 years old and attributed to gold artifacts found at Bulgaria’s Varna Necropolis. There are many hobbyists today that uphold the traditional wax mold sculpting, but the techy spin on this tradition opens a vastly improved feature and dimensional precise element of control.
There are special resin compositions that are formulated to completely decompose at higher temperatures allowing for the investment casting, when kiln baked, to retain a clean fossilized imprint of the original 3D printed object. These printed objects require similar post processing steps to clean, cure, de-platform, deburr, and polish in order to produce a quality molded item.
Here’s a pendant I designed that was casted in Sterling Silver. The boarder was polished and the center was sand blasted.