Michael Scudieri - MODEL MAKING

Model Making

I come from Providence, Rhode Island, the former jewelry capital of the U.S. Trained from an early age by my father, himself an incredible master model maker trained by his father, I've crafted jewelry and other items 9-5 in my own studio for centrifugal and lost wax casting. This is a skill I love utilizing every day; it's fun, challenging, and it's in my DNA. I'd love to hear from fellow jewelers and craftsman just as much as new customers!

I designed these sterling bands to combine the organic with the tailored appeal of finely tooled high end jewelry. Though the iPhone 3 refused to focus on the silvery, cavernous and buffed twining, I think it still speaks for itself.

Art Deco Beetle - commissioned by Rhode Island based jeweler, Lauren Barham.

This sea turtle series was a blast. Engraving the texture of these pieces took an entire afternoon, but was totally worth it.

This is the wax model I crafted for lost wax, to be cast in pure gold.

this is the piece from the side. Very thin, but still not as flat as the finished model.

This was the image the customer gave me.

And the final piece with the 'tree' still attached. The tree is an impression of the channels of the mold left behind from where the liquid gold is inlet.

The high sheen of this piece gave the iPhone camera a difficulty focusing.

The final thickness, which as I recall hovered around 1.5 millimeters.

Jones New York commissioned this runway cuff and collar set back in 2011. It needed to be sleek, clean and petite. I love this under stated but commanding design.

Organic Charms

The desired shelf price vs material vs sheer practicality presented a unique trifecta of challenges. But, then you don't eat an elephant in one bite, right? (I won't lie. I'm not in love with that expression...;)

Ram Goblet Bottom - this piece presented a series of challenges, as the customer supplied the horns from another piece to plug into the cranium. Achieving this required accounting for size/compression variances through a multi material, multi step mold making process involving lost wax in phase 1 and then a further 3 phases of vulcanized rubber molds to arrive at 'production ready'. In the end, it worked out perfectly. Phew! What you see here is the original wax carving I created for the lost wax mold phase.