[Jewelry making - Article 00328] - Re: [Orchid] CAD/CAM - What works for you?

[David D. Bright]

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Neil

>     Let me ask, generally speaking, do finished products get the 'look'
>     you envisioned when you first sat down to design? Does the
>     available tech wizardry ever (even subtly) morph your design ideas? 

    That would be a hard question for me to answer. See if this helps. 

    I do a lot of work for other jewelers and am usually instructed as to
    what the "look and feel" of the piece will be. I also do work for
    other CADpeople. I get the jobs they can't do. Today I took in a job
    for a bezel like pendant, from another jeweler. The instructions on
    the envelope told me to make it 4 mm thick, shared prongs and the
    bezel walls to be .75mm thick. Bale on top would be round tube like.
    This doesn't lend itself for creativity. Other times I am given a
    picture and told that this is the look and feel that they want (of
    course their stones are never the same sizes as in the picture) so
    you get as close to what they show you with what they have. Sometimes
    they bring you multiple pictures and tell you they like this from one
    picture and that from another. They want you to blend different
    styles and elements. Sometimes it's possible sometimes it is not.
    Today, I actually had a man bring a shotgun into the store to make a
    pendant from his gun. He had a pendant that his wife wears but it was
    a very lousy thin piece of crap. He saw a Thompson submachine gun
    that I did and that is what started the conversation and planted the
    idea in his head to get something much more lifelike. We took a
    picture of his gun, and later he will bring in his wifes gun and we
    will take a ph= oto of it too so that I have a reference as to what
    it should look like. = These are not run of the mill shotguns but
    double barrel over and underswith 4 interchangeable barrels. The 5-7K
    and up type of expensive weapon. They were skeet shooters. I also was
    asked to make a mounting for a 3 ct. Princess cut with diamonds on
    the side coming up to a trellis like underbezel and it would also
    have 4 princess cuts on the sides of the main diamond. I kicked that
    one back for more specific information. I want to know the EXACT size
    of the diamonds that he plans on using on the out sides of the band
    and up the sides of the head. I also wanted to know what thickness
    and width he felt the shank should be. He never talked about a finger
    size. So sometimes the first contact that you have on any level with
    a customer is just to see if you think that the job is possible 

    If you are just going to make something just for the fun of it and
    don't really know where it is going to end up...then yes you can use
    some of the capabilities and tricks, or builders that are enclosed
    with each program. Some programs handle things differently than
    others, some have their specific quirks and or specialties. Some
    will handle "organic" looks better than others. That's why I am
    always looking and investigating other programs than what I have.
    Some programs are great for certain particular types of work but
    much more difficult to use for other types of jobs. In my opinion
    there is always room for a better way to do things. But like I said
    before I am really happy with Rhino/Matrix. So far I have found it
    to be a good program that will handle most everything that I need to
    do with it. JewelCad is another program that is quite widely used in
    the orient. It is a powerful program and has a big jewelry library.
    It works similarly to how Rhino does in some respects and will get
    the job done. 

    If you are looking into getting into CAD there is absolutely no
    cheaper way to do it than with a student version of Rhino. I think
    that it is like $300 for a student version and $900 for the full
    version. Training is reasonable too. If you can add Tech Gems to
    that, you have a really great combination that will do most jewelry
    type work.

David
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