Continuing CAD Innovations at Mardon Jewelers
September 30th, 2010 by James L. Sweaney, CGA, FGA. GGDaughter Jenny Sweaney and I are attending a 2 day ArtCam User Group session in Las Vegas. We will be getting the latest info on our CAD technology– ArtCam released the 2010 version of JewelSmith in August, so we’ll get a chance to discuss the new features and troubleshoot with crack DelCam staff– DelCam is the British parent company that created ArtCam.
The user groups are always fun and interesting because we get to meet a wide range of folks using CAD technology– last time, we met a woman from Seattle whose business is cake decorating. She uses ArtCam to create custom molds to form colored sugar decorations used by professional cake decorators and bakers!
Currently, we at Mardon use a CNC machine to create many of our custom pieces. CNC means Computer Numeric Control, a fancy way to describe the small mill/lathe we use to carve the wax models which we then cast by the lost wax method.
Mardon is in the process of acquiring another state-of-the-art technology for the creation of jewelery, a digital rapid prototype machine. This technology uses a blue ray laser to solidify resin compounds into models suitable for lost wax casting.
I find it fascinating that we are combining the very latest “space age” technology with an ancient technique developed in several cultures independently- evidence shows this technique of metal working in Indian as early as 5th century AD, and in the Pre-Columbian cultures of Central and South America.
Our use of these technologies, both old and new, allows us to create almost anything you can dream of– don’t wait any longer for the jewelry you’ve always wanted.
Tags: CAD/CAM, Rapid Prototype Machine
