Well, I am sorry that part of the authors of the posts in this thread have kind of “paternal” attitude to CNC jewelry machining.
Almost 30 years ago, in early 90th, when Israel was still one of the world’s centers of diamond industry, I was involved in implementation of CNC milling machines in jewelry production, mainly in invisible diamond setting technique. In this technique, contrary to others, what you see looking from the top on a jewel is a collection of small diamonds placed flush against each other, creating a flat surface. Because the stones are set so close together and on the same level, the stones appear like a single large diamond. What holds the stone in place is a hidden metal construction that is set beneath the diamonds. This construction is attached to the diamonds to ensure that they don’t fall out of place. This is done by cutting tiny grooves into the diamond’s girlde and then fixing the diamonds onto the metal frame. This setting is very secure, but this depends on the quality of the workmanship. If the metal frame or the grooves in the diamond are not fit to perfection, there is a high chance of the diamonds becoming loose and even falling out of the setting. This is a problem which can be very difficult to rectify. If the shape of the diamond is square or rectangular, the requirements of the accuracy of metal construction cavity could be easy achieved by hand craftsmanship. But demands for the shape of the finished jewel became more and more challenging, and as result the shapes of individual diamonds too. Manual cutting of the cavities matching the shapes of diamonds became extremely difficult. As the geometry of the diamonds was known, the use of CNC machine became just natural. Have in mind that the metal construction material is either gold or platinum. The “Diamond Egg” (diamond replica to famous enamel Faberge eggs) and diamond Mont Blanc fountain pen were the first 2 projects. I supplied the customers with 4 axes Impact Mini Mill CNC machine from Servo Products Company, which performed excellent. Almost 20 machines have been sold after that for similar tasks. This was very small, bench type, real production machine, with grounded ballscrews and ways, very high speed spindle and endless program size on PC based control. At that time the cost was almost 30k$, certainly not a Sherline toy.
So both, the technology and the demands matching machine, should be appreciated. It is very serious, multibillion dollar business, and do not forget: women oriented. And at the end they rule the world …