Dai Ban

Dai Ban is a jeweller,a sculpture artist and he does comission jobs. he does say that he loved the motifs used,leaves, flowers, vines mixed with geometric shapes and patterns that really work together and create endless designs.

hes trying to incorporate these beautiful images into his jewellery after much experimentation and practice hes found ways to create flowy movements of his had,wax tools. he makes jewellery from casting wax without any moulds.

below is an email i sent to dai dan to find ways of solving problems im facing with finding ways of casting mehndi patterns.
"hi there,im currently doing my Btech in jewellery design and manufacture and my jewellery is based on mehndi patterns.Im using you and your work as one of my refernces and inspiration. please could you share with me your materials used,the working process,prblems and challenges faces whilst trying to fing the right tools to do what you exactly wanted"

here is some of his work from daibanstudio.com
 done by lost wax casting

kruger coin pendant

I was asked to make a pendant with a given gold Kruger Rand coin.It is made for a baby ordered by her grandmother. Must not be sharp as to hurt the baby or catch onto her clothes. I made a prototype to show them using wax.

I cut 3mm of a wax tube and used the 'cheese slicer' the tool used to shape the inside of the wax ring to a specific size, I made little balls out of beeswax to go around the ring like little beads to  look like this. I decided to make the prototype in this way so that is the lady likes it, I can just cast it.

I left a space for the jumring and v-loop.i stuck the balls with supperglue so that they dont fall off.i would have to make claws that keeps the coin in place after casting.

The grandmother wasnt very happy when she saw the prototype she wanted someting as she describes as plain and simple so I decided to draw a simple pendant with twisted wire which she liked.

 And now she loves it.

precious patterns

I used a simple mehndi pattern in a repititional manner.I did a few variations of how the neclace would work best. Just like mehndi you keep applying it till it fills up the spaces.

cut all my wires the same lenghts so that they will look similar,bending wire into petal shapes needs quite abit of patience especially if you have to make about 10 of them.The process soon becomes faster and neater after a few trys and mess ups.Getting just the right flame for soldering makes the process alot smoother
.

arranging the elements to see which looks better,sets better,feels better when being worn.

pretty,polished.wearable and looks very indian