How to Design Your Own Exclusive Piece of Jewelry
Consider this, being the jewelry connoisseur you are, you came across an exquisite jewelry piece you wanted to buy for you or your loved one. To your displeasure, you can’t seem to find that same piece anywhere. If you have in mind the exact piece of jewelry to fit your needs, you should not have to go through such situation.
You can save yourself from this exasperation when shopping for jewelry by creating your own exclusive jewelry pieces. As only you know the exact ideas and sentiments you want to be conveyed in your piece of jewelry, it is high time that you designed one yourself
Designing jewelry by yourself may not appear to be an easy task, but the prerequisites are clear and simple. It requires innovative ideas, imaginative thinking, a creative thought process, and a clear vision that you need to sketch out. The custom jewelry designs reflect a lot of creative aspects and therefore it becomes a personal expression of who you actually are.
Perhaps you have a feeling now to go ahead and create something new through your imagination which you were longing for. But there are two fundamental techniques that you should be aware of: traditional and modern.
1. Traditional Wax Casting Technique
The wax casting technique has traditionally been used by many artists to create sculptures as well as jewelry. It is an easy technique in which a wax model according to the design is created first. Next, the molten metal is poured into the mold and the desired sculpture is created. This age old technique was so effective that the modern day jewelers saw opportunity in it and beautifully adapted wax casting for jewelry making.
Gradually, the jewelers found this technique very useful because wax models were easier to create and it was even easier for them to mount gemstones on them. Because wax can be molded in any desired shape, easy experiments with different textures produced amazing results for jewelers. Also, molding wax into various casts, allowed jewelers to venture away from only offering standard designs.
Getting started with wax casting
First, craft your wax mold and make an exact replica of your desired jewelry piece.
Pour a mix of gypsum-plaster based mold material, heat it to high temperatures, and allow it to cool for some time
To cast the jewelry, place the metal of choice in a pouring crucible and melt it inside
Use a jeweler’s centrifuge to pour the metal into the mold
Then the metal should be allowed to cool and slowly put in cold water
Gently tap with a hammer to break the plaster
To give your jewelry the finishing touch, use an angle grinder and a cut-off wheel for cutting extra metal spruces
Give it an acid bath and clean it
Trim out remaining irregularities using a metal buffing wheel
2. Modern Jewelry Design Using CAD (Computer Aided Design)
In today’s world, like any other industry, computer technology has drastically changed the way jewelry is being designed. On multiple fronts, modern technology has conveniently replaced traditional jewelry making methods because of the efficacy, availability, and accuracy of computer software. Due to these obvious reasons CAD jewelry designing is on the rise.
One of the most useful aspects of incorporating software technology for designing jewelry is the fact that it provides us seemingly endless possibilities. Modern day CAD software allows jewelry designers to go through minute details using three dimensional designs, which can produce an amazing line of innovative jewelry.
If you want to make your own piece of jewelry using CAD jewelry designing, you don’t necessarily have to be an expert. There is a 3D jewelry design software available that can be very handy for you to create customizable pendants, rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings.
Getting started with CAD jewelry design software
To begin with, the CAD jewelry design works using 3D software. The need for using 3D software is that it can easily and affordably create complicated and highly detailed jewelry pieces. The 3D designs can be resized, restructured, and can be printed on all the metals like gold, silver, brass, bronze, and titanium.
The CAD jewelry softwares are extremely user-friendly and they are customized in such a way that people with no 3D experience can also design with them. The software also allows you to design jewelry free-hand, without using templates, so that you can work on your own creativity entirely from scratch.
The 3D designs created by the CAD jewelry software obviously cannot be printed by your home printer. You can, however, save the backup files of your designs on the server. Then, you can later send your design to a 3D printer. Finally, after getting printed on a 3D machine, you can have your exclusive jewelry piece with you.
Jewelry designing has always been considered as an art and has been appreciated across the generations. However, this shouldn’t restrict the process to only being done by a select few. In today’s era, a person who is as enthusiastic and creative as any other jewelry designer can use both traditional and modern methods to create his/her own jewelry pieces. The availability of wax casting techniques and CAD jewelry design software has allowed the amateurs give life to their own creativity and imagination.
