Jeweller - November 2018

SOAPBOX
PREPARING FOR CHANGE
MEANS SHARING KNOWLEDGE
Back in 2012, I wrote about how Australia
tends to be up to 10 years behind other
global jewellery industries in terms of
technological innovation in the mass
production industries.
However, in the past six years we have
narrowed that gap greatly and are fast
advancing in CAD/CAM to be on par with
pioneering countries, including bringing it to
small business.
Australians have become more globalised and
are often willing to fly overseas to attend trade
fairs and industry events. At worst now, we
are only a year or two behind other countries
in terms of taking up new technologies. The
pace is picking up.
One factor opening the floodgates to CAD/
CAM manufacturing jewellers has been the
deflation of cost for the equipment involved
in printing. Jewellery CAD Software has
remained expensive, but the hardware in 3D
printing has dropped dramatically in the past
six years.
Jewellers can now buy a machine for as
little as US$500 that can print castable resins
and it will ship with free CAM software.
Commercially available printers were priced
between $50,000 to $150,000 back when I
started sharing my observations about CAD.
This drop in pricing will give advent to
micro-industry jewellers working from
home and selling online only, with little to
no actual exposure to the formal jewellery
industry. For casting companies, the challenge
moving forward will be to keep pace with
the constant release of newer resins and
understanding whether or not we will be
able to produce good casts using them, and
helping provide that knowledge backwards
to existing and newer CAM users.
While most monomer based resins are
actually castable, there are a lot of resins
that are not appropriate for the commercial
process, and the onus is then placed on the
casting company to produce a quality cast
from unknown or un-castable resins, and
in some cases casting houses may suggest
producing a mould from such pieces, and
rather injecting the mould with wax.
I’ve found over the last couple of years,
very talented “old school” jewellers I have
worked with have been snapped up out
of the trade to work in management roles,
or now run their own businesses, and the
number of traditional jewellers on the bench
is diminishing - apprenticeships look to be
dwindling as well.
Many traditional skills aren’t going to be
passed onto the next generation of jewellers,
leaving an increasing pool of new jewellers
who grow directly into CAD without a full
understanding of the practical aspects of
production on the bench, from what they
produced on the screen.
In the next five to ten years I think we are
going to see a lot more young people going
straight from school, having already learned
CAD, with a thirst to make jewellery. They will,
with very little capital expense, have the ability
to create products right from their laptops; we
will see a lot more micro-businesses cropping
up around these new jewellers.
The current “maker” community, traditionally
producing toys and small components, are
ONE FACTOR
OPENING THE
FLOODGATES
TO CAD/CAM
MANUFACTURING
JEWELLERS
HAS BEEN THE
DEFLATION OF
COST FOR THE
EQUIPMENT
INVOLVED IN
PRINTING
moving to wanting their designs in metal, and
this requires casting typically, once they tie
the casting process together with what they
already print now, the leap to manufacturing
jewellery is only a very small one.
However, the ability to create the CAD
files and print them is one thing, but the
knowledge required to determine if that
product is market-ready is an acquired skill, as
is the finishing of the product.
Traditionally trained manufacturing jewellers
are dwindling in numbers, and we as the older
generation of jewellers need to share as much
of this vital information as possible with these
up-and-coming jewellers – and the wider
jewellery community – to ensure the next
generation of manufacturers aren’t faced with
gaps of knowledge.
We need to get that vital information about
jewellery finishing, on the web as well, where
everyone can get it, so this new pool of
jewellers has a resource to go to, after their
“physables” becomes actual physicals.
A number of casting companies, and CAD and
CAM providers are building online platforms
and forum spaces for all varieties of jewellers
to ask questions about 3D printing, casting
and prototyping. It’s an opportunity for us to
all learn from each other. i
Name: Chris Botha
Business: Pallion
Position: Operations Manager – jewellery
division
Location: Marrickville, NSW
Years in the industry: 27 years
50 Jeweller November 2018