"Computer Aided Designing" (aka CAD) for easier Diamond Setting!

 When I was learning to be a Diamond Setter back in early 1960's, a 'model-maker' would sit for 2-3 DAYS and hand-sculpture one single (bracelet) charm. Times have changed and now it possible to make the same creation in only a few minutes! All of this using a basic C.A.D. program! 

 In my inventory of CAD related photographs that I've been collecting on this topic, I going to share these with you now!

 The following pieces could not have been made by hand, if so, these would have taken many days just for one piece. From the computer being programmed, these can be formed with a '3-D printer' overnight, the next morning they are ready for metal casting!

Tools that are needed: 1)Your "Computer Aided Design" program! 2)Your willingness to explore different styles!

Instead of "Rough-Cutting" a pattern for setting, then "Bright-Cutting" afterwards! C.A.D. has allowed 'us' to overcome many tedious tasks and now creating some wonderful patterns! 
 Scale of Difficulty; This all depends on the complexity of the pattern you need.

                                           Here are a few of them!..ENJOY!

 This little project used the customers own Pearl and 16 "Princess-Cut" diamonds using CAD!

                                           

 This is a photo of the 'program menu' that shows the gram weight, number of stones, total carat weight with different karats that could be needed and the stone sizes. This detailed menu makes pricing so much easier, no more errors and guesswork! 

 If you wanted an "Azure' inside-pattern, so be it, done! All measurements & designing was done in a few minutes. I decided on 33 stones for each of the two rings named "Waterfall", as it looks like 'water falling off the sides of the ring'..:>)

 This was a section for an unusual necklace that my student client won "First Place, with Honours" in a school in Toronto. I was pleased to teach her the detailed techniques in using stone placements in using CAD, she works now for Tiffany's in London, England!...BTW, I did all of the stone setting!

 I lost count how many stones were being used...many! I remember this took me over 3 hours of setting for all two pieces.

 Here is my "Guinness World Record" poker-chip. Although this is only a replica from the original, I keep this to show how a computer did all of the multi-piece designing. This weighs in a 75 grams of silver, the original weighed only 136 grams, of 22 karat gold.
 There are 66, 1.25mm stones in the number "8". 

The "number 7" has 49, 1.5 mm stones. All of the stones had 2 'mini-claws' for each stone being set. If just one claw got broken...(let's not think of the problem!)The setting used was a "Shared-Claw" technique.

  
This was a 3-piece construction..(the main disk, plus the two numbers) and using a Laser soldering process. This disk would have to be heated up too much and many problems would then ensue.

 This is the side view of the Poker-Chip. Each of the 17 stones were 6.25 mm's in size.

This disk, is just but one of 7 pieces all created by C.A.D. and was made to worn as a necklace!

 This was a medallion for the "Miami Dolphin' owner! I had to decide where all of the different stone sizes were to be set.

Any comments please email me "gerrylewy18 (at) gmail.com"