Editor’s Note
This article, based on observations from the Vicenza Oro 2019 fair, highlights a key trend in jewelry manufacturing: the shift toward adopting 3D printing as a service. While the technical and economic benefits of additive manufacturing are now well-understood, the high upfront investment remains a significant barrier for many workshops. This service-based model could be the catalyst that brings advanced digital fabrication to a wider segment of the traditional jewelry industry.
As always, the original Vicenza Oro 2019 jewelry fair, held in Vicenza, Italy (one of the primary global hubs for jewelry manufacturing), offered a clear view of the state of the art in jewelry 3D printing. While the benefits of implementing additive manufacturing (AM), either for investment casting or direct precious metal powder production, are now clearer than ever, the segment still struggles with making investments in technology. For this reason, the use of 3D printing as a service is now becoming the dominant path for most innovative jewelers to access the future of jewelry manufacturing and the growing demand for more complex and original geometries.
This underlying trend was reflected in the smaller number (compared to past editions) of 3D printer manufacturers present in the T-Gold section of the Vicenza Oro fair. A big change from the past, when several major players used this event to present their latest products. Nevertheless, those that remain are reporting strong growth in hardware sales, especially for indirect jewelry manufacturing processes (patterns for casting and silicon molds) and strong growth of services using their direct precious metal 3D printing hardware.
The biggest players at the show were the local ones. Sisma and DWS each presented some very interesting new products. DWS is a historic leader in SLA, and its technology has evolved specifically to cater to the needs of local jewelers, which it knows very well. The latest innovation presented was actually a software-based one:
Sisma is another local leader in jewelry manufacturing machines, both subtractive and additive. The company is well known in the jewelry AM industry for its mysint 100 laser metal fusion (a type of SLM) 3D printer, which is one of the few specifically built to process precious metal powders. Recently it also introduced the Everes DLP system, a stylish and affordable system (priced around €13,000), which is capable of producing some impressive casting parts. The company’s extensive knowledge of the jewelry industry’s needs also enables the development of very specific applications, such as 3D printed supports for post-processing jewelry items in Sisma’s subtractive systems.
Vicenza Oro is also an opportunity for those already familiar with direct precious metal jewelry 3D printing to showcase what can be achieved in terms of advanced geometries. Unfortunately, to date, there are only a handful of jewelers who are forward-thinking enough to push geometries in new directions through AM. One of these is Nuovi Gioielli, a jewelry making company that has pushed Sisma’s mysint in dramatic new directions and has now scaled up the number of installed systems.
The good news is that it is now increasingly clear that 3D printed jewelry is the future; the bad news is that the majority of jewels shown in the jewelry exhibition part of the fair were not 3D printed and hardly innovative (which may explain why the show halls were almost empty). Nuovi Gioielli’s 3D printed pieces are evolutions of pieces that were created a few years ago and it will still take some more time before others finally catch on (at least in the Western world).
On the other hand, the Eastern world may be a lot faster in adopting directly 3D printed jewelry. At the show we finally had the opportunity to meet with Cooksongold’s David Fletcher, the man in charge of Cooksongold and EOS’s venture into precious metal 3D printing, beginning with the PRECIOUS M080 system.
This was not the only news to emerge from Cooksongold’s participation at Vicenza Oro. The company also announced that the EOS M 100 system can be used for jewelry 3D printing as well. This is a significant change from the previous approach with the PRECIOUS M080, which will now be progressively phased out. While the first machine, which was sold only by Cooksongold, used a wooden filter to collect precious powders, the M 100 uses a standard metallic filter, meaning it can be used for other materials as well. Along with a larger diameter, this will further open up the use of precious metal 3D printing in many areas even beyond jewelry.
More interesting news came from Legor, a leading producer of precious metal powders. The company introduced a new, optimized 5N (rose gold) powder for AM, and presented its exclusive distribution of the B9 Creator DLP 3D printers. Prodways will now be able to use the resins produced internally by its subsidiary DeltaMed to directly target jewelry makers, using a brand that jewelers know very well.