Old Vs. New

Is it better to use a traditional approach or CAD/CAM technology to create a setting for a uniquely shaped stone? One jeweler set out to find the answer.

KrombholzCADRecently, third-generation jewelry store owner Lee Krombholz of Krombholz Jewelers (krombholzjewelers.com) in Cincinnati set out to compare the pros and cons of CAD/CAM and a traditional handmade wax approach. Here you’ll read a summary of his findings, as well as the approaches that a few other jewelers would take to a similar project.

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KrombolzhandmadeLee’s Conclusions

While I have a passion for traditional goldsmithing and wax carving, I must admit that I look at these approaches as the “old” ways of making jewelry. For the past eight years, I have been using CAD/CAM to design and manufacture jewelry in my store. I enjoy the time savings and efficiency that this new technology has afforded me, but I can see the benefits of both traditional and modern approaches to jewelry making.

Never before have I set out to really compare the pros and cons of these two different approaches for the same project—until now. In this article, I share my experiences creating identical designs around a mirror image pair of paisley shaped citrines—one created with a traditional wax method (above, left) and the other made using CAD/CAM (above, right).

I realized while creating these designs that both the traditional and CAD/CAM techniques have advantages and disadvantages. Comparing both methods from a time standpoint, it was clearly faster for me to build the model in CAD/CAM (three hours total) than by hand (five hours total). It was also faster to clean up the CAD/CAM casting before setting than it was to finish the handmade piece: 10 minutes versus 30 minutes, respectively.

However, when it came to setting the gems in the castings, I made up a little time (about 15 minutes) with the handmade piece because of the extra steps. (These steps are detailed in the print issue of MJSA Journal.) It may come as a surprise to some that I actually spent more time setting the stone in the CAD/CAM piece than I did with the handmade piece.

In the handmade wax model, the outline of the stone is slightly more accurate than the outline made in the CAD program because you can allot for inconsistencies that can’t be programmed into CAD.

Also, when working in wax you can manipulate the setting to account for the shape of the stone’s pavilion, which in this case has a bulge; you cannot accurately capture this in CAD. This means that it will take more time to open up the tip of the setting to create the space needed for the point of the stone to float safely inside because the pavilion wasn’t accounted for at all in the CAD model. In addition, I spent some time thinning the outside of the CAD bezel to the desired final 0.4 mm thickness since nothing came off of the inside of the bezel in the seating process.

Apart from the specific setting experiences with each piece, I made a particularly interesting observation when working on this project regarding how my focus shifted in each approach. When working on the handmade wax model, I spent most of my time trying to achieve the highest level of finished detail, which can be likened to a dog chasing its tail: You can spend hours and hours trying to make the wax perfect, but you’ll still have to spend a lot of time cleaning up the casting. In contrast, when designing in CAD I spend hours trying to give the design a “handmade” feel—such as softening the flame-shaped pieces used in this design to make them look organic—only to find that there is always a dominant “mechanical” feel to the finished product.

Considering the challenges of each approach, it would seem to make sense to hand-model designs if they are very organic, and go the CAD route with designs that are more crisp and mechanical. However, you must also consider the designs’ reusability. When working in CAD, I create a library of organic parts that I can reuse. I don’t have that advantage with traditional model making.

After working on this project, I don’t think there is a definitive “better” way to approach setting uniquely shaped stones. Ideally, a jeweler should have both techniques in his or her arsenal and be able to use either for any given job. While I will generally opt for CAD/CAM because of the time savings involved and the ability to save design elements that I create, I will almost always carve a bit on the CAM model to soften it, add detail, or make it feel more organic. It would seem to me that the ultimate CAD challenge is to design organically—in other words, meld “old world” techniques with modern technology.

Customer Feedback

I thought it would be interesting to see what my customers thought about the two designs. I put both pieces, which were priced the same, in a box in my showcase and asked my customers to pick which one they liked better. While several customers didn’t notice a difference or prefer one pendant over the other, the remainder of the surveyed group was split about 50/50.

Some customers appreciated the softer feel of the wax-based piece, while the more precise look of the CAD-based piece appealed to others. Fans of the former tended to say that jewelry should have a “handmade” feel that they think is somewhat lost using CAD/CAM, while fans of the latter said that the details were more defined and they thought that the stones appeared larger in it.

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