About

A great company from the dental technology world hires a 4th gen jeweler 

Making Casting Easier, Faster for Twenty Years

I’m Daniel Ballard. My priority is helping you as a jewelry maker. Your best work is the thing here. So let’s start with how this helps you. 

Originally made in 1999 specifically to make platinum casting easier and more reliable, Docs’ is now used for many different purposes in the jewelry trade. Before Docs’ was introduced, platinum casting was a far less reliable process and it took two people to do it right. Upright centrifugal with a torch was the order of the day. 1600 F was the correct casting temperature, a strain on any oven and the people working. Previous plasters at the time were either very slow for the production cycle or at best left a rough surface, again increasing costs of production. Now we can employ clean crisp castings in a little as 3 hours. Stronger and faster.

Docs’ is not just for platinum anymore. Docs’ unique properties of strength and tolerance for extremely hot molten metals provide much more than better platinum casting. Ever need to cast twice in one day? Would a 3-hour casting cycle help you when a rush job is in? How about those tough cad cam models? The material changes constantly. Fast vs hard vs burns out well vs price pressure = Trouble for you.  Unless you run Docs. 

Doc Robinson’s Casting Plaster-The Origin story

In 1999 Marc Robinson (pictured on the right) and Jurgen Maerz (On left, then with The Platinum Guild) were hoping to see a better casting plaster for platinum. Less than a year later with great help and patience from Talladium, a new product was created. More recently Daniel Ballard took up the franchise and now supports the product in concert with Talladium.

About Daniel Ballard

With more than thirty years of hands on experience in the world of precious metals and jewelry, Daniel is among the fourth-generation of the Ballard family members who have advanced the trade-craft. While supervising the expansion of Precious Metals West, Daniel also lent his expertise to fellow industry veterans domestic and international.

A qualified, expert researcher, his work has been published numerous times in the industry journal, The AJM Journal, later known as The MJSA Journal and others. He is also credentialed in government task forces, patents and legal testimony. Steeped in public presentations, he is a solutions-based professional in an ever-evolving field.