After studying traditional jewellery skills & techniques at a Technical college, and then learning CAD I’m convinced that it is easier to learn CAD with a jewellery background. Now this does not mean a person without traditional hand-making skills cannot learn CAD, but what I have seen from over 11 years teaching CAD for jewelry design, someone who does not know how to fabricate a piece by hand has a steeper learning curve than someone who has studied or worked as a jeweller.

The Basics of Jewelry – Terminology & Design Guide is a useful resource to have whether you have jewelllery experience or not.

You can download the 82-page PDF here which covers things like The Anatomy of a Ring
(Shank Styles, Ring Profiles, Ring Styles, Prong Styles, Setting Styles ,etc) as well as covering earrings and neck pieces. The back section of the book covers Stone shapes, cuts, Diamond size charts, and a glossary of jewelry terms.

Applying jewelry “best practices” for your CAD design & manufacturing processes, can make a huge difference to your casting results. Most of the time, your 3D design looks great on a your computer screen, and your 3D printed STL model looks perfect; but your casting results may be disappointing, or worse, the cast fails.

So how can you fix this? Are there any guidelines for getting consistent casting results from your 3D CAD designs?

Whether you’re an experienced CAD jewelry designer or you’re just getting started, there is always someone with more experience than you, of with more specialised skills than you. For jewelry designers just beginning with CAD, is important to follow the guidelines to ensure you get consistent results.

Tom Manos is the CAD/CAM Director of Carrera Casting. In this video he shares his real world expertise & knowledge to highlight important CAD design considerations for prongs and walls.

• What is the optimal height to width ratio for prongs?
• Why tapering or drafting (pyramiding) of the prongs in important.
• How the gap tolerance between prongs & walls, or between prongs impacts your casting results.

Learn the best way to implement your logo and lettering into your jewelry design to survive the casting process. In this episode you will learn about:

• Draft angles
• Recommended depths for logos & stamps
• Use of block or sans serif fonts to maximize casting quality
• Creating the best logos & stamps (laser engraving)