Looking for a source to cut sterling silver for jewelry

I am a jewelry designer and I have some 2D designs that I need to cut in sterling silver. I am looking for a source to cut the pieces. The designs are quite simple such as name pendants, bar pendants and simple shapes.. I do not not have a preference on technology used (laser, waterjet or CNC). So far I have not had any luck finding a company that will work with fine metals. I am hoping that someone in this forum can help me.

Also, I am interested in buying a machine that can cut fine metal up to 2mm. I have read that a CNC may be a good solution that will not break the bank. Any recommendation on what to buy? My budget is around $2K

With your raw materials cost being so high, not sure that machining is the right direction to go... Turning precious metals into chips seems like a bad idea to me...

There simply is no ~$2000 laser that will cut sterling silver... Not sure you can get any waterjet for ~$2000 - generally not ideal for smallish parts anyway.

Why not use investment casting? You could certainly use a small CNC (or a high-resolution 3D printer) to make your investments...

Gp, I sent you a private message... hopefully it will lead you to more information than you will get here with your budget.

Gpvanarsdale said:

I am a jewelry designer and I have some 2D designs that I need to cut in sterling silver. I am looking for a source to cut the pieces. The designs are quite simple such as name pendants, bar pendants and simple shapes.. I do not not have a preference on technology used (laser, waterjet or CNC). So far I have not had any luck finding a company that will work with fine metals. I am hoping that someone in this forum can help me.

Also, I am interested in buying a machine that can cut fine metal up to 2mm. I have read that a CNC may be a good solution that will not break the bank. Any recommendation on what to buy? My budget is around $2K

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Silver is a 'base' metal, rather neat stuff, but still not 'noble', and not really all that costly.

In the Gold & Platinum biz, even hand-wash basins and for-damned-sure, our buffing wheels, had gadgetry with very high degrees of 'recovery' such that boxes of what appeared to be DIRT paid $9,000 or so checks from the recovery refiners. So yes, 'chips' or sprues, filings, or stamping leftovers are not a big deal.

For small silver goods in only '2D', if lost-wax casting - cheap to get into - doesn't suit yah, then a foot press or bench top air press might do.

Challenge in that is that dies for it are costlier to have made, harder to make yourself, than shrink-compensating a master model - not even necessarily in Silver itself - making and cutting rubber molds.

Ergo one needs VOLUME to recover the costs of it.

Very competitive industry for you to get to that happy state of volume production - few ever do - so I'd suggest casting, be it lost-wax, cuttlebone, charcoaled block, or open metal mold.

"Coin press" technology has been around for a thousand and more years, Silver a nearly ideal metal for it. Hand die-struck dies are older yet. In either case, we are back to the cost of the dies as the challenge. Need to have VOLUME.

CNC? For sure useful.

But for making the dies to do 'many', not the product, directly, and one-at-a-time.

Silver is far too easily worked in many other ways than can justify MACHINING it - "onesies" or otherwise.

Check with Kevin Potter (kpotter). He's a jeweler that makes machines for jewelry making.

Tom

cutting silver with the laser is problematic because of its very high reflectivity, a large portion of the light (energy) is not absorbed into the metal, and also because of its very high thermal conductivity (energy is rapidly dissipated).

photoetching is a technique often used for moderate to high volume "2D" work in silver, in thinner gauges especially, (under .6-.8mm).

die stamping has high initial tooling cost, and some designs are very difficult or impossible to execute.

A tabletop CNC router can do short runs of "2D" work very effectively. A lot of folks here are used to 1M dollar CNC units that would not be cost effective at ALL for this type of work, but some to these machines can be had for a few grand. 2MM would be a stretch for these though, and would take 5 or more passes.

casting of corse is common, but for thinner 2D work the finishing can exceed the cost of materials, and high quality flat surfaces are the most difficult.

~ closer to a paper cutout snowflake, over 500 pcs; photo etch

~ closer to a '70s nametag bracelet; cast it

~ bigger than a mailbox; abrasive water jet

~ tabletop cnc router may be the sweet spot.

Design your own pancake dies and have them waterjet cut, probably more economical than cutting the raw silver.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I do send some of the pieces to be casted but to make a name pendant is not cost effective to cast as it is only one. I also make prototypes which may need continuous modifications until I get the right design which again is not cost effective to send to be casted. That is why I am interested in exploring the possibility to buy a small CNC machine.

Any suggestions or recommendations for a
Small CNC machine that can cut and engrave metal?

Gpvanarsdale said:

Thanks for all the suggestions. I do send some of the pieces to be casted but to make a name pendant is not cost effective to cast as it is only one. I also make prototypes which may need continuous modifications until I get the right design which again is not cost effective to send to be casted. That is why I am interested in exploring the possibility to buy a small CNC machine.

Any suggestions or recommendations for a
Small CNC machine that can cut and engrave metal?

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"Send" to be cast? Casting is too easy to set up in-house, especially for tiny one-off's, to have to send-out.

Might be more economic to CNC cut a wax, then cast.

If you are trying to eliminate the tedious drag on time of hand finishing of fine details, the thrumming of azures and such - good luck.

CNC router's tool-size sets boundaries of its own as to how sharp an inside corner or the like it can generate.

And then.. with all these 'unique' factors, you can easily spend about as much time - maybe a multiple of it - messing with a model on-screen, then generating 'special' tool-paths each go - not all of them spot-on at first try, so it ain't the LAST try, even on an order for but one single unit.

Worse part is if the end-product LOOKS machine-made, not hand-made, and common, majority, social expectations see that as 'seems mass produced, ergo CHEAP', when it was the opposite. Damned tough sell to get yerself paid much 'real money' if I were the buyer.

So... the bean-counter in me doesn't see you even matching what a classical Amerindian silversmith can crank out faster with nought but basic hand tools and the blessing of long experience.

IOW - overly optimistic business model as much as it is a technical issue.

Any practicing Silversmiths out there want to weigh-in?

How about a pantograph ?

SeaMoss said:

How about a pantograph ?

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Got mine. H.B. Preise, air spindles, X,Y, Z slides, sort of semi 3-D'ed. Need a weirdly-shaped part in tool-steel? It can be a go-to, simple hand-cut and smoothed FRP or plastic templates.

Silver? Not. Human hand & eye. Hammers. Gravers. Dapping blocks. Roller. Etc, Etc.

Or so I learnt on Copper and Brass. Then on Gold.

Proper Silversmith may differ. I will listen.

SeaMoss said:

How about a pantograph ?

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completely obsolete, and one bygone tool I have no problem tossing in the bin myself.

mechanically tracing from a limited number of templates that can get easily lost, a delicate, finicky spindle (if motorized), often running on a skinny little round belt, that sounds like a terrible tool... Some did great work with them, but thanks, I'll pass.

I meant for his purposes, guys. Not for a shop to use What's he going to get for two grand that will do a nice job but still have that human touch ?

Or do you not want the "human touch", OP ? In that case maybe those small routers are the way to go .... we have sign shops using them, they do a nice job. They can engrave from a pdf, which would be convenient.

SeaMoss said:

I meant for his purposes, guys. Not for a shop to use What's he going to get for two grand that will do a nice job but still have that human touch ?

Or do you not want the "human touch", OP ? In that case maybe those small routers are the way to go .... we have sign shops using them, they do a nice job. They can engrave from a pdf, which would be convenient.

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I'm not sure "two grand" would even buy half a decent ration of hand tools and gravers, these days. Have to buy a few at a time or DIY fab.

And how d'you propose to generate the original for that .pdf if the product is alleged to be custom/unique?

Seems a "Catch 22" situation, here:

Automate - loose the cachet that sells the goods, go hungry.

Fail to do - starve anyway, just tireder from all the hand work.

yes, trying to find something appropriate for the OP, I don't think the handmade look is on his wish list, thats on Monarchist's!

having said that, seems to me the pantograph is neither fish nor foul, (although I have never used one myself) the worst of both worlds, in some regards.. "cold" machine made lines, but still requires hand guidance. very limited patterns. great for its time.

a little search turned up the Nomad 883 tabletop CNC router, 3.5K or so. no idea if it's any good, but this is the type of thing that's out there. looks like you can definitely get units in the 2k range, but you need to do some work putting them together yourself, and/or the software isn't as integrated. just my 10 min. on the web, so take it for..

Nomad 883 CNC Cutting Aluminum - YouTube

cyanidekid said:

yes, trying to find something appropriate for the OP, I don't think the handmade look is on his wish list, thats on Monarchist's!

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Machine-made is two-dollar goods is all. The retail store chain my in-house manufacturing div supported sold tons of it, but I can't see making a decent living out of hand-crafting goods that do not even LOOK hand-crafted.

Easier to take a stock item with a place for it, and engrave a name. As we did. Other end of the facility, I kept a full-time New Hermes operator busy + overtime and over-flow, ran it myself some weekends near Christmas. Also had a hand-engraver on contract.

Silver, nor plated goods just weren't otherwise allowed into our vault even for repair. Gold and Platinum only. Can't risk mixing them, and messing with Silver wasn't worth our labour and facility costs.

This is not an 'easy' business the OP is in. Folks hear 'Silver', think of MONEY, don't realize how thin the margins are, and how little the 'smith gets to actually KEEP.

Ten-percent labour costs, 90% gems and metal was typical, even with Diamonds, Corundels, not much in the way of lesser stones. Settings 14 K and above, only.

That worked at 8 million-plus USD/year, cost, not Keystone, and at an 8 'turns' to the year inventory flow.

Same era, sam annual gross, Fairfax Distributors (Kay Jewelers/Black, Starr, & Frost) were turning an item about once to every two and a half years. We made money selling goods. They lived off the interest on credit sales.

It doesn't work so well if a sole craftsman has NEITHER environment, nowhere near the scale, is trying to earn even a meagre $30,000/year and cannot get there from here on too-low GROSS sales volume. Woe betide him he gets the flu or needs a vacation, too.

Monarchist said:

Other end of the facility, I kept a full-time New Hermes operator busy + overtime and over-flow, ran it myself some weekends near Christmas.

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Funny you should mention that, I wasn't going to say anything lest y'all jump my ass again but saw a Hermes online the other day for about a grand. Looked nice.

I don't know if he wants Chinese stuff but could look on Taobao. The router our sign maker uses is about the size of a desk, he said it cost about three thou. Smaller should be cheaper. Engraves patterns and letters and so on in plexiglass then you put colored backups behind them. Also wood and other materials. Does pretty nice work, actually. I was surprised at the detail.

Don't know how practical this is but with a tablet and Illustrator, he could do his designs by hand then convert to pdf for routing ... or go straight computer-control if he prefers. The sign-maker machines are all set up for that, no weirdo Loonix programming required.

Just some idears to throw out there ...

SeaMoss said:

Funny you should mention that, I wasn't going to say anything lest y'all jump my ass again but saw a Hermes online the other day for about a grand. Looked nice.

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An H.B. Preis Panto engraver with air-pencil spindle is easily more useful than a (New) Hermes dragging a diamond tip about, was a great deal less costly, stores in about the same footprint as an old-school typing table. Problem-solver here, is all. Rare ones. Nothing to do with earning a crust.

I'd suspect that a person can probably net more income with the plastic signs and various data and safety plates and placards than with the silver biznoughts.

More folk NEED them, need more of them, and more often.

Carbide 3d

Carbide 3D

To the OP - what kind of quantities are you envisioning? And what kind of accuracy do you need? Sterling or fine silver, what hardness?

I'd think a simple chinese desktop router/engraver would do the trick easily, if you don't mind jumping into the cad/cam abyss. The Carbide 3D machines look very user friendly, and it's great to have easily available support, which you won't with a chinese ebay machine.