Editor’s Note
This article explores how additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is transforming jewelry production with precision and efficiency. It raises a compelling question about the future of traditional craftsmanship in an increasingly high-tech industry.
Additive manufacturing, a new cutting-edge technology, allows for the production of gold and silver jewelry using a machine, with a high level of precision and quality, and crucially, as a single piece. Is this a threat to the handcrafted touch?
Did you know that in 2024, the gold ring you are wearing might have been 3D printed? This small revolution, known as additive manufacturing, is comparable, according to some jewelry experts, to the arrival of digital technology in photography! To recap, until now, a piece of jewelry has been the result of two ancestral techniques: lost-wax casting (a mold into which metal is poured, then refined by hand) and machining (the artisan starts with a block of metal which they sculpt using cutting tools to bring a piece of jewelry to life). Popularized in aeronautics and developed for jewelry over the last decade, additive manufacturing, which blends innovation with craftsmanship, bore its first fruits, meaning its first pieces of jewelry, in 2021. Here is how it works.
Imagine a jeweler’s design precisely recorded in a three-dimensional computer file. Every curve and detail is carefully refined to ensure the piece is both aesthetic and functional. The model is then analyzed, layer by layer like a mille-feuille, by software which injects it into a cylinder filled with gold powder. Thanks to laser fusion, the fine particles of precious metal transform into a solid structure that, stratum by stratum, gives shape to the jewelry. The result is astonishing, and one cannot help but fear that this machine might one day replace the human hand.
reminds Hervé Buffet, General Delegate of Francéclat, the professional committee for the economic development of the watchmaking, jewelry, and fine jewelry sectors, which highlights this futuristic technology in the traveling exhibition in France “Secrets de Bijoux” (recently in Lille).
Its revolution lies in the optimization of time and the creation of movements and assemblies that were not achievable until now with lost-wax casting, except through multiple, lengthy manual steps.
Its limits? The cylinder containing the gold is 10 centimeters in diameter, which restricts the size of the jewelry. No mixing of materials is currently possible, and no precious stones can be introduced due to the intense heat of the laser. And the price of a machine (around 200,000 euros) as well as the 3 kilograms of gold turned into powder represent a significant investment.
concludes Hervé Buffet.
