Page 6 - 3DA Mag N° February2018 -EN+

DOSSIER

Prodways to achieve complex shapes and geometries.
Prodways, specialist in industrial and professional Lastly, if 3D printing is increasingly used for jewels
3D printing, integrates a division dedicated to luxury, made with titanium, therefore, “the price of this
art, design and architecture: Initial. Catherine Gorgé, material should decrease in order to truly democratize
Managing Director of this unit, explains that the technology.”
companies within the jewellery industry request their
services both for prototyping and for the manufac- Materialise
turing of the finished product.
Materialise, another provider of 3D printing techno-
logies, collaborates both with designers and jewellery
makers to manufacture accessories. In this field, the
Belgian company offers the services of its software
“Materialise Magics” to manufacturers. Jewellery
makers could request the services of another provider
for the printing.

Materialise explains the design process via a colla-
boration with Titan Company Ltd., watchmaker and
jewelry manufacturer in India.
Speaking of materials, Catherine Gorgé highlights the
titanium powder, the most compatible material with “The design gets put into a digital CAD file, which
the EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining) technology, is then converted into a 3D-printable format with
used in the division. This technology allows a direct Materialise Magics software. The software converts
printing of the finished product. Furthermore, there file formats, edits object size and scale, fixes any
is a growing use of ceramics in this area. conversion errors and adds support structure so the
model doesn’t drift away on the printer bed. The model
is then printed out in resin on a Stereolithography
printer and in the final production stage, the 3D print
is used as the master part from which all finished
pieces of jewelry can be cast.”
To mention a specific case, the Managing Director The main advantages for Titan are the shortened lead
talks about Inorganic Jewels. “We 3D printed the times and the freedom of design. 3D printing therefore
jewels with a Cast 200 resin on a L5000 3D printer. enables manufacturers to achieve a high level of
(The high definition resin is also called lost wax.) intricacy, and to enhance their flexibility. Furthermore,
Thereafter, a foundry melted our wax models,” she products can be altered in size or easily multiplied
explains. in quantity.
Boltenstern

As for Boltenstern, the company directly 3D prints
its jewels from gold powder, platinum powder and
silver powder.

As far as prototyping is concerned, the division
manufactures prototypes of necklaces with the
sintering polyamide powder (pA2200) so that the
creators (A + A Cooren) can validate their volumes.
Compared to traditional manufacturing techniques, 3D
printing allows designers to avoid the mould making
stage as they directly print with lost wax. Other advan-
tages obviously include time saving and the capacity Marie Boltenstern

Magazine / February 2018