Cad means computer assisted drawing and Cam means computer assisted manufacturing and they have been around for a long time now.

A jeweller makes a piece of jewellery in two traditional ways: Firstly, by hand, using files, saws, soldering equipment and a host of other gadgets. It takes a long time and might take days or weeks to finish one single piece. Secondly, by making a model first and then having this cast in metal. He makes the model either by hand in a cheap metal such as brass, copper or silver, or carving it out of wax. Even this second method takes just as long as the first or a good part of it.

Enter the computer. Using a specially written computer programme a trained user of the programme draws the item, lets say a ring. This process might take a few hours depending on the skill of the operator and the intricacy of the ring.

After the drawing is made then it is downloaded to a computerized manufacturing machine which can understand the file. There are different types of these machines. One type is where the actual drawing is cut by machinery directly into metal. So the drawing goes in and a ring comes out. The most common type is where a machine prints wax like a printer prints ink and the lines of wax are built up into the form of the piece of wax jewellery. This process might take twelve to twenty four hours but it is all automatic.

We end up with a wax model of the ring. Now it has to be made into precious metal and for that we use the lost wax casting method, a method that is used the world over to mass produce identical pieces of jewellery.

The computer operator does not need to be a jeweller but he or she would certainly need a jeweller’s advice to fully understand what he was attempting to draw.

But then jewellers are mostly computer illiterate. Find a manufacturing jeweller and try to get him to send you a jpeg file by email and you will surely agree with me as you see the blank look on his face.

So we either need a computer literate, experienced jeweller, which is a very rare animal indeed, or we need two people with different skills one a computer expert with this programme and the other a jeweller and get them to work together to produce a piece of jewellery.

It might sound like the holy grail of making jewellery but there is a lot involved. What with serving his favorite customers in his shop, dealing with sales reps, answering phone calls etc your local jeweller is not likely to be skilled enough or have the time to make you a wax model by hand let alone draw you a computer image. There are people who just make wax models by hand for jewellers and do nothing else.

The computer programme costs around $5,000 US to purchase and the lessons cost something around $1,000 plus per day for a few days in order to cover the basics and then there will be many months of practice ahead. The printing machine will cost around the $60,000US. So, all in all, you are not going to see these around in small manufacturing workshops for a long time.

One day you will walk into a jewellery shop and sit down with a designer, jeweller or computer operator and tell him what it is that you would like. He will show you designs and after you get across what you like then he will draw the image for you. Of course, this won’t happen while you are sitting there, but it is feasible that later the same day you might be able to see the image. Then after some minor touch ups it will be printed and then manufactured. You might have a piece of jewellery by the next week. That’s some time in the future I believe but it will happen and may happen here and there right now.