Every Maison Char piece begins its life not in metal, but in wax.
The finished wax is surrounded by a special investment material which hardens around it. During the casting process, the wax is melted and burned away, leaving behind an empty cavity in exactly the shape of the original piece.
Molten precious metal – such as sterling silver or gold – is then cast into that space.
The wax disappears, and the design returns in metal.
That’s the magic of the process: the original wax is lost, but everything I created in it – every shape, ridge, texture and irregularity – can be captured in precious metal.
A closer look at pieces still in progress, before they’re sent off to be cast.
I create the original waxes myself, but I entrust the actual casting to a specialist professional casting house.
Precious-metal casting is its own highly specialised craft. It requires dedicated furnaces, vacuum or centrifugal casting equipment, precise temperature control and specialist knowledge to cast silver and gold reliably and safely.
Rather than trying to do every stage simply for the sake of saying everything happens under one roof, I prefer to work with specialists where their expertise produces a better result.
It also allows me to focus on the parts of the process that make a piece distinctly Maison Char – developing the design in wax, choosing gemstones, refining the metal, creating the final texture, setting the stones and finishing each piece by hand.
When the casting returns to my studio, it isn’t finished jewellery. It’s raw metal.
From there, I clean and refine the casting, remove casting marks, work the surface, polish or oxidise it depending on the design, set the gemstones and complete all of the final details by hand.
So while another pair of expert hands helps transform my wax into metal, each Maison Char piece begins and ends at my bench.
A few pieces, shown at the wax stage next to the finished piece that came from it.
Once a piece returns from casting, each gemstone is set by hand at my bench.
