[CBARYAN]

Hi everyone

I am looking to enter the jewelry business and have a few design concepts in mind.
In brief, I need a setup that can cut/shape gemstones and metals with high precison.

Can someone guide me what type of cnc machine should i go for (am cconfused by the many options and dont understand 2 spindle, 3 spindle, 3-4-5 axis etc details)

My target manufacturing volume is 450K/month.

Additionally, what kindof surface finish should i aim for ? any guidelines welcome.

Also, is it possible to machine 2 different materials at once ?

Thanks and Regards
Aryan

[awerby]

Laser engraving machines can put marks on metals and gemstones, but don't have the power to cut them. It's possible to cut metals with more powerful fiber lasers, but I've never heard of anyone using them to cut gemstones.

CNC mills are good for shaping metals in 3 dimensions with good precision (depending on the specific mill), but there's a lot of waste involved. It's not usual to start with gold billets and machine them to shape; it's more common to use the mill to carve wax, which is then cast in gold by the lost-wax method. There are some automatic and semi-automatic machines used to create faceted and cabochon gemstones, usually in standard sizes and shapes. Cameos are sometimes cut using ultrasonic cutting heads on CNC machines.

If you're making jewelry, I'd think you'd want the best possible surface finish on everything.

If the materials you're cutting are joined together well, I suppose you can cut more than one at a time. This would work best if they were, for example, two different alloys of gold fused together. It would work less well if the two materials were gold and corundum, which require different tools and strategies for cutting.