My Jeweler said I can't keep my wax mold??

[h1juhas]

I am having a custom ring made, it is from a CAD and will be cast. I paid to have a mold made and upon receiving the mold I was Informed that I needed to return it..I cannot keep it? I was very confused by this because I was paying a additional cost for the mold to be made. When I ascertained as to why I was not really given an answer other then them saying that it cost them a lot for the shipping to send from goldsmith to me and back. I questioned this and was told that the goldsmith they use requires that you send the mold back..that's all THEY knew. Wondering if anyone can tell me why this is? The jeweler stated that possibly the goldsmith wanted it back so that it can't be replicated but to me that's insinuating I plan on selling it. I wanted to ask the forum advice on the subject and if this is the norm with
Receiving a wax mold. Thank you kindly.

 

[Enerchi]

I understood that the wax pretty much melted once the metal was poured in the mould.... That's probably the reason why you can't have it back.

 

[denverappraiser]

The manufacturing process involves casting the ring from that wax. The way they do that is to encase the wax in a plaster like material, burn out the wax and pour metal into the resultant cavity. It's 100% destructive to the wax itself and, obviously, it requires having the wax in hand to do it.

It's possible to make a second wax from the CAD file if they want and they can cast from that one but these things aren't without cost because of the time on the milling machine. Also there are sometimes hand modifications that have been done to the wax after it was machined and these would need to be repeated. All that said, they probably could make you a second wax if you really really want to have one but I wouldn't expect it to be free or even all that cheap. Why do you want to keep it?

 

[h1juhas]

Thank you for explaining the process It makes more sense now. I preferred to keep it because I wanted to show family and I could look at it while waiting for mine to be made