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How to know when it’s time to invest in your own machine

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<h2 id="h-how-to-know-when-it-s-time-to-invest-in-your-own-machine">How to know when it’s time to invest in your own machine</h2>

by Sharon Elaine Thompson

Start with the building block of all narrative.

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing.

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by Sharon Elaine Thompson

If you design with CAD, chances are you have your models produced by a service bureau. But at some point, the question will arise: Should you actually add a CAM system to your repertoire? Would it be worthwhile?

If you design with CAD, chances are you have your models produced by a service bureau. But at some point, the question will arise: Should you actually add a CAM system to your repertoire? Would it be worthwhile?

For many jewelers who have made the investment, the answer is an emphatic “Yes!” But that yes came only after carefully thinking through whether CAM made sense for them. If you’re at that point, here are three initial considerations that can help lead you to the right decision.
<h3>1. Do you even need a machine, or are you better off subcontracting?</h3>
Two factors stand out in a jeweler’s decision to invest in a CAM system: volume and process control.
Volume: If you produce only one or two CAD models a month, the chances are good you don’t need CAM, says Greg Stopka, owner of Jewelsmiths in Pleasant Hill, California. Sending those few models to a service bureau, he explains, will cost less than buying, learning to operate, and maintaining a CAM system. In addition, by using a service bureau you can choose the type of CAM—mill or rapid prototyping—that’s best for a particular design, rather than committing to only one kind of machine or investing in both.
When your monthly production of CAD designs reaches the point where service fees equal or surpass the payment on a CAM system, however, it may be time to consider the investment. Based on his experience with purchasing a mill, Stopka puts the tipping point at about four pieces a month, but that figure will vary depending on your specific service fees, possible loan or leasing terms, and the type of machine in which you’re interested. You should also factor in the costs of a dedicated power line you might have to run in, the consumables (wax and bits for the mill, bulbs and resins for the growers), and maintenance, including any service contracts.
Control: “For me, control was an issue,” says Mark Maxwell, CMBJ, who ran his own studio full time before becoming manager of the Jewelry Manufacturing Arts Department at the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, California. “It wasn’t really cost. I wanted to control all aspects of production.”
It was also an issue for Tom Linenberger, owner of Goldworks in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Garden City, Kansas. Linenberger, who says he’s a bit of “a control freak,” knew he faced a steep learning curve with CAD and “would screw up a lot of models.” Why pay a service to produce early designs, he figured, only to have them come back as “downright frighteningly ugly” models he wouldn’t be able to use? Having the mill in house gave him the freedom to play and make as many bad models as he needed in order to learn, and all of those saved service fees helped him to earn back his investment.
<h3>2. How can it help with sales?</h3>
CAD’s value as a selling tool is obvious, but having CAM in house—especially a mill producing hard-wax models—can also help close sales. When Linenberger hits a design impasse with a client, he asks them to come back in a few hours, then mills a rough prototype to show them. Customers are astonished by how quickly he can produce the sample, and even ask if they can watch the mill working.
Jim Tuttle of Green Lake Jewelry Works, a volume custom manufacturer in Seattle, has four mills and a rapid prototyping machine. Like Linenberger, he uses the mill when prototyping for a customer. “We have a customer paradigm where we show them a wax model,” which allows him to “make adjustments as the customer is sitting there,” he says. “They say, ‘Oh! Look at that! He just tweaked it a little bit.’”
This kind of showmanship adds value to the finished product. “Customers are blown away by the technology,” says Linenberger. “They get a weird look on their face and say, ‘I can’t believe what I’m witnessing.’” CAM also provides a practical benefit, he adds: “The customer sees there is a lot of work and effort to do this one little process. If they don’t see that, they think all you do is heat up the gold and smush it with your fingers.”
<h3>3. Can you use the creative “push”?</h3>
Once Linenberger made the financial commitment to CAM, he wanted to hear it run every day. He worked relentlessly to make and mill new pieces, and his efforts coincidentally freed his creativity: “I didn’t worry about whether I should have a piece milled. I’d just go for it, play with it.” The freedom to experiment without worrying about the cost of possible failures strengthened Linenberger’s CAD skills to the point where he won the “Best of Show” award two years running in the “Ultimate Design Contest” sponsored by InStore magazine, the SMART Jewelry Show, and Stuller. [See “Taking Flight,” MJSA Custom Jeweler 3.1.]
Maxwell, who started out using a service bureau, also found CAM helped his ability to create and experiment. “I knew, if I had a machine, I would do more experimentation and more product development,” he says, adding that an on-site CAM system makes it easy to “produce models very quickly, assess them—Do they fit? Do they look good? Do they weigh right? Is it what I really want?—and then make refinements very quickly.”
RP systems also work for this purpose, with one difference. With mills, jewelers usually experiment by tweaking the wax models, but the RP systems’ ability to grow models quickly shifts this process: If the model is not right, says Tuttle, “we jump back into CAD, tweak the design, then grow another one.” 
<h3>So…Is it worthwhile?</h3>
The answer is up to you. But for many who have made the investment wisely, after considering everything, the answer can be summed up by Linenberger: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!”
“The mill has been a godsend,” says Stopka. “It takes a couple of hours [for it] to do a wax, versus days to do a wax by hand.” Not only has the speed at which the mill produces models enabled him to take on more work, but the reduction in the time investment has increased his profit margin.
Maxwell says he’ll still hand fabricate simple pieces—“it’s quicker for me to do that than to create a CAD file, mill it and cast it”—but for complex designs, he’s glad he made the CAM investment. “Going through this process is much quicker with the CAD and CAM in unison,” he explains.
And Linenberger adds one final thought: For him, the best part of owning a mill is knowing that, at night, there is “someone” at the shop carving waxes, “and I’m not paying them.”

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For many jewelers who have made the investment, the answer is an emphatic “Yes!” But that yes came only after carefully thinking through whether CAM made sense for them. If you’re at that point, here are three initial considerations that can help lead you to the right decision.
<h3>1. Do you even need a machine, or are you better off subcontracting?</h3>
Two factors stand out in a jeweler’s decision to invest in a CAM system: volume and process control.
Volume: If you produce only one or two CAD models a month, the chances are good you don’t need CAM, says Greg Stopka, owner of Jewelsmiths in Pleasant Hill, California. Sending those few models to a service bureau, he explains, will cost less than buying, learning to operate, and maintaining a CAM system. In addition, by using a service bureau you can choose the type of CAM—mill or rapid prototyping—that’s best for a particular design, rather than committing to only one kind of machine or investing in both.
When your monthly production of CAD designs reaches the point where service fees equal or surpass the payment on a CAM system, however, it may be time to consider the investment. Based on his experience with purchasing a mill, Stopka puts the tipping point at about four pieces a month, but that figure will vary depending on your specific service fees, possible loan or leasing terms, and the type of machine in which you’re interested. You should also factor in the costs of a dedicated power line you might have to run in, the consumables (wax and bits for the mill, bulbs and resins for the growers), and maintenance, including any service contracts.
Control: “For me, control was an issue,” says Mark Maxwell, CMBJ, who ran his own studio full time before becoming manager of the Jewelry Manufacturing Arts Department at the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, California. “It wasn’t really cost. I wanted to control all aspects of production.”
It was also an issue for Tom Linenberger, owner of Goldworks in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Garden City, Kansas. Linenberger, who says he’s a bit of “a control freak,” knew he faced a steep learning curve with CAD and “would screw up a lot of models.” Why pay a service to produce early designs, he figured, only to have them come back as “downright frighteningly ugly” models he wouldn’t be able to use? Having the mill in house gave him the freedom to play and make as many bad models as he needed in order to learn, and all of those saved service fees helped him to earn back his investment.
<h3>2. How can it help with sales?</h3>
CAD’s value as a selling tool is obvious, but having CAM in house—especially a mill producing hard-wax models—can also help close sales. When Linenberger hits a design impasse with a client, he asks them to come back in a few hours, then mills a rough prototype to show them. Customers are astonished by how quickly he can produce the sample, and even ask if they can watch the mill working.
Jim Tuttle of Green Lake Jewelry Works, a volume custom manufacturer in Seattle, has four mills and a rapid prototyping machine. Like Linenberger, he uses the mill when prototyping for a customer. “We have a customer paradigm where we show them a wax model,” which allows him to “make adjustments as the customer is sitting there,” he says. “They say, ‘Oh! Look at that! He just tweaked it a little bit.’”
This kind of showmanship adds value to the finished product. “Customers are blown away by the technology,” says Linenberger. “They get a weird look on their face and say, ‘I can’t believe what I’m witnessing.’” CAM also provides a practical benefit, he adds: “The customer sees there is a lot of work and effort to do this one little process. If they don’t see that, they think all you do is heat up the gold and smush it with your fingers.”
<h3>3. Can you use the creative “push”?</h3>
Once Linenberger made the financial commitment to CAM, he wanted to hear it run every day. He worked relentlessly to make and mill new pieces, and his efforts coincidentally freed his creativity: “I didn’t worry about whether I should have a piece milled. I’d just go for it, play with it.” The freedom to experiment without worrying about the cost of possible failures strengthened Linenberger’s CAD skills to the point where he won the “Best of Show” award two years running in the “Ultimate Design Contest” sponsored by InStore magazine, the SMART Jewelry Show, and Stuller. [See “Taking Flight,” MJSA Custom Jeweler 3.1.]
Maxwell, who started out using a service bureau, also found CAM helped his ability to create and experiment. “I knew, if I had a machine, I would do more experimentation and more product development,” he says, adding that an on-site CAM system makes it easy to “produce models very quickly, assess them—Do they fit? Do they look good? Do they weigh right? Is it what I really want?—and then make refinements very quickly.”
RP systems also work for this purpose, with one difference. With mills, jewelers usually experiment by tweaking the wax models, but the RP systems’ ability to grow models quickly shifts this process: If the model is not right, says Tuttle, “we jump back into CAD, tweak the design, then grow another one.” 
<h3>So…Is it worthwhile?</h3>
The answer is up to you. But for many who have made the investment wisely, after considering everything, the answer can be summed up by Linenberger: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!”
“The mill has been a godsend,” says Stopka. “It takes a couple of hours [for it] to do a wax, versus days to do a wax by hand.” Not only has the speed at which the mill produces models enabled him to take on more work, but the reduction in the time investment has increased his profit margin.
Maxwell says he’ll still hand fabricate simple pieces—“it’s quicker for me to do that than to create a CAD file, mill it and cast it”—but for complex designs, he’s glad he made the CAM investment. “Going through this process is much quicker with the CAD and CAM in unison,” he explains.
And Linenberger adds one final thought: For him, the best part of owning a mill is knowing that, at night, there is “someone” at the shop carving waxes, “and I’m not paying them.”

CAM Crossroads

How to know when it’s time to invest in your own machine

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