For a while now, I’ve been slowly learning these large and complex softwares. Finding out as I go, how to fuse the experience of many years working in handmade techniques with the continuously improving technologies of 3D modeling and printing.
3D Design & Modelling
The reasons for bringing 3D into the studio’s
After many years of doing purely hand work, where all the stages of making a piece happens in the studio. From melting custom gold alloys, to hammering and rolling the gold ingot into sheets and wires or directly shaping with the hammer the main form of a ring. Then fabrication [building the piece, then making all the tiny details and ornamentation with gravers and chasing tools. Then bright-cutting, setting the stones and hand finishing with texture gravers and custom made burnishers, giving the piece a special feel, for which, not even buffers with polishing compound are used for the most part. All this takes a very long time, over 500 hundred hours for some work of jewellery, with mistakes or design choices being nearly always irreversible. Couple that with weakening eyesight, and the need for a new way of working was clear. There are new possibilities, new ways of co-working with people on their commissioned Work. [More on this at the last section on this page] I may even be willing to use white gold… if it feels right for the composition of the stones and design.
The jewellery creation process with 3D technology
Modelling The first part is designing a model on the computer, I model with Zbrush and Rhino, two totally different kinds of softwares. Zbrush is a free-form digital sculpting [and much more] used a lot in the films and computer game fields as the industry standard. While Rhino was originally created as an industrial design application, but is use in a very wide spectrum, from architecture to boats design to it’s place as the most used software for jewellery. *Keyshot renderings are planed and will be added later this year. 3D printing and casting These two mechanical stages are not done in-studio, but rather sent to a printing & casting house. Normally only large business like jewellery factories have their own [very expensive] facilities. Hand work back at the studio After collecting from the casting house, the standard process in many places is mostly machine based finishing, followed by sending the jewellery to a setter for stones setting. However here it is quite different, as this is the staged where the fusion between the “old way” and this modern process takes over. There is much that can be done, details added, small engraving and chasing work. Special settings and hand finishing with burnishers. In some designs, there can be separate parts that needs to be joined [perhaps from different metals], and it is possible that printed/cast parts will be combined with hand fabricated parts. As far as stone settings: until now, I have always set all the stones by myself, but it is possible that in a design where there are many small diamonds to set in a relatively standard way, that I will give just this part to a diamond setter. Setting central stones and other special settings will continue to be done here in the studio.
Commission Work, Participating in the Design of your jewellery
Starting from 2019, Commissioned Work for jewellery will be created [in most situation] through the sequence of modeling, printing and casting, and from that point hand work will begin on the cast model. This combined process opens many new possibilities and should reduce costs comparing to fully hand made Work. * One of the most important benefits for a commissioned work of jewellery, is the ability to view and go through the process of fine tuning the Work with me, before it is physically made in gold.
Please see the Commissions page in the Studio & Info section on the way I work on commissions. As it is in some ways, quite different then what what may be expected.