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Thread: 3D CAD and bench jewellery

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    Default 3D CAD and bench jewellery

    Recently, I've been scribbling some designs that wouldn't make much sense to fabricate - I could carve them from metal, but realistically the only way to do them sensibly is to get them cast. Now, I could use wax - or I could go back to (some of) my roots and use CAD (I used to use 2D CAD quite a lot).

    Anyway, the question is - what are people's opinions on CAD (with the attendant CAM stage following on)? Is it a crutch for people who can't model in wax? Is it moving too far from the creation of the jewellery? Does it detract from the essential bench skills (e.g. piercing & soldering - without which you really can't be called a jeweller IMO)? Or is it a useful medium for designing, with myriad benefits over a pencil & paper?

    Of course, one of the reasons I make jewellery is because it has physical form - the software I write is ephemera, massless and can only be perceived by its effect. Besides, it gets me away from the computer...

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    I have an old trade customer and friend who has gone down the Cad/Cam route and over the past few years all of his new employees have been engineers rather than goldsmiths. When I have spoken privately to the remaining goldsmiths on his staff, they complain that their working day consists mostly of assembly work rather than creation. One other aspect of going down this route of manufacture is that jobs are designed to benefit from these manufacturing methods. I must admit that I am glad to be at the end of my goldsmithing career as I feel I was lucky to be working during a period when a lot of unique items were being commissioned. Recently the rise in gold prices has all but killed off my side of the trade. For example, the last big table centre commission that I completed was made with 18ct gold. We bought approx 2 Kilos of sheet and wire at a cost of around £9 per gram. Today's price for 18ct sheet and wire is circa £34 per gram.

    James

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    Thanks for that James, it is reassuring to hear that indeed the skill used by the goldsmiths is a wonder to behold. It is sad to hear that it may be a dying art.... I guess, sticking my neck out a little (blame it on being poorly and medicated to the hilt), but it could be said, (and to slightly coin a phrase and no disrespect meant, after all, I do teach. Lol): those who can't, CAD and those who can, do.

    I know there are some amazing artists out here (gawd knows I wish I had even one ounce of the skills although I am on a long and purposeful road to get someway towards that goal, albeit in my spare time on top of my day job)...

    But what happens when it all the cad stuff gets sent to those areas where labour is cheap and production costs are lowered to offset the high cost of metals? I hope people continue to want unique works of art that the smaller business' create and designs, as beautiful as they are that come from from computer aided designs don't supersede the talent that is at the at the hands of the artisan.

    ps.... I know I carve and do one off Delft casts, I still make them physically, but realise I could be a little hypocritical here as the outcome is doing something I couldn't achieve in the metal by manipulating it.
    Last edited by Wallace; 14-01-2013 at 01:16 PM.

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    There's been an interesting back & forth on Ganoksin too about CAD; one of the points that caught my attention is the idea that the people coming online with CAD who haven't got the bench skills don't have less of an idea on the design part - the practicality & wearability of items (rings too heavy & too wide, for example). Is there merit in the idea that someone going from the bench side to *include* CAD (and remember, it is Computer Aided Design, not about the computer designing for you) will have a clearer idea of what constitutes good design?

    I think my ideas on CAD are currently for 2 prongs - 1 is to use it as part of the design process, regardless of whether the item is fabricated or cast (and a potential selling point for commissions - there can be a lot less miscommunication with a rendering of what the item will look like), the other to design and cast very, very small runs (i.e. 1) of things that I can't fabricate sensibly.

    At the end of the day, it's just another tool.

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    Quote Originally Posted by ps_bond View Post
    There's been an interesting back & forth on Ganoksin too about CAD; one of the points that caught my attention is the idea that the people coming online with CAD who haven't got the bench skills don't have less of an idea on the design part - the practicality & wearability of items (rings too heavy & too wide, for example). Is there merit in the idea that someone going from the bench side to *include* CAD (and remember, it is Computer Aided Design, not about the computer designing for you) will have a clearer idea of what constitutes good design?

    I think my ideas on CAD are currently for 2 prongs - 1 is to use it as part of the design process, regardless of whether the item is fabricated or cast (and a potential selling point for commissions - there can be a lot less miscommunication with a rendering of what the item will look like), the other to design and cast very, very small runs (i.e. 1) of things that I can't fabricate sensibly.

    At the end of the day, it's just another tool.
    will check out Ganoskin (their social bar is a little off putting), will be interesting to read more. It is just another tool, but we are in a technological age where many things once done by hand are now done by a machine.... Except in a power cut or when the batteries go flat!

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    I can see the point of CAD for mass produced Elizabeth Duke style bling and i can also see the point of it when it goes further into CAM because it is capable of producing stuff which is either impossible using traditional techniques or would be prohibitively expensive. I think that if you made something like this: http://bathsheba.com/jewelry/rygo/ by hand (if it were possible) it would be astronomical in price, but CAM allows it to be affordable.

    Whilst I love beautiful things and I think that work produced using time-honoured skills is incredibly special, I am also of the view that making something affordable for many people is a good thing. And mass produced stuff is still valued by many. Just look at all the stuff that Horner produced using die stamping. Nowadays people pay mind-mumbingly huge prices for jewellery which was mass-produced because the design was good. I'm sure when those methods of mass production started in the late 19thC, bench jewellers were anxious about their future just as now, but they survived because there will always be people who value work which is bespoke and made by hand.

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    Which brings me to the saying that a production line can be run by one man and a dog: the man is there to feed the dog and the dog makes sure that the man does'nt touch anything.

    Not yet in what we are up to, though. Dennis.

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    I have been dithering about much the same thing. I can carve things (kind of) from wax, but it takes me such a long time, and I'm currently struggling with making a tiny crown setting. I can't get it symmetrical or perfectly proportioned in wax, so I think I'm going to go down the CAD route for this one.

    There are other things that I've designed but can't get my head around how to make using traditional skills, but if I get them made via CAD, I'd feel like I hadn't really 'made' them. Tricky...

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    Quote Originally Posted by ShinyLauren View Post
    ...if I get them made via CAD, I'd feel like I hadn't really 'made' them. Tricky...
    Yeah, that's part of my concern too. But again, remember that CAD is *only* a tool, and not always an easy one to use - it's an electronic paintbox. It's still a skilled task to create a decent CAD representation of an object, particularly if you want it to look organic more than linear; one of the Rhino tutorials involves creating a simple ring with a setting - and the end result looks like something that can be fabricated easily from sheet. Quite quick to do though, and if you were going through a commission changing stone sizes, colours and the likes it would be very fast to show a client the result of the alterations. The Bathsheba example is as dependent upon the RP technology as the CAD - that's not going to lend itself well to a subtractive process (wax mill).

    As for it being only suitable for mass production, I'm not convinced - a wax can be reproduced easily regardless of whether the source is CAD/CAM or lovingly hand carved (or even carved in a sweatshop). If you look at some of the objects in e.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Masters-Gems.../dp/1579908322 many of them are cast (and none of them particularly lend themselves to mass production); whether that is effected in wax or CAD/CAM isn't said. There's still quite a lot of handwork involved in all of them - not just the setting work, but many of them have fabrication involved as well.

    Of course, the other thing I need to remember is you can't cast mokume thankfully But I could map a representative mokume pattern onto a surface for visualisation.

    Quote Originally Posted by medusa View Post
    ...I am also of the view that making something affordable for many people is a good thing.
    Which was a subject that came up in a recent meeting, sort of - which remains a hot-button topic for me. If someone only has £20 to spend on a piece of jewellery, there is a market that already caters to that; I do feel very strongly that making hand-made precious metal jewellery to that price level is both bad for the individual and bad for the hand-made jewellery market as a whole. A similar sentiment is expressed in http://www.amazon.co.uk/Setting-Succ.../dp/1408130440

    (Now I'm starting to wish I had commission from Amazon!)

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    I wasn't clear, Peter. I'm not saying CAD/CAM is only suitable for mass production, far from it. What I meant was that it ~could~ be used that way. A design could be produced using CAD, printed in wax to create a master pattern and then reproduced using regular moulds and wax injection methods.

    If CAD/CAM can be used to mass produce attractive and well designed items for the lower end of the market, I think that's good. I see no reason why only the wealthy should be able to buy nice things. I also don't think it will stop people splashing out on unique, handmade stuff for either special occasions or because they prefer jewellery which isn't run of the mill (which cheaper, mass-produced stuff will always be).

    I think that possibly the way for bench jewellers to go is to highlight the fact that people can have beautiful, handmade, unique items which are not exorbitantly expensive. It never fails to amaze me that people will pay huge amounts of money for (what I consider to be) mass-produced tat from Links of London or Pandora, when they could get something which is handmade and personal. I think that sites like Etsy and Folksy are really helping in this. I look at the stuff people from here who are professional full-timers sell on etsy and I marvel at why anyone would want to buy this: http://www.johngreedjewellery.com/en...-/invt/p10624/

    When they could buy this:http://www.etsy.com/listing/89924290...ng+silver+bead

    Etsy search actually found so many beads under £70 that I picked one at random, but you get my drift.

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