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Additive Manufacturing in the jewellery industry: exploring the potential of platinum and titanium Metal AM offers the jewellery industry significant creative and commercial opportunities. One such opportunity is the production of platinum and titanium jewellery by Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB), a process described as a "match made in heaven" for these metals. This technology offers jewellery designers advantages that include greater creative freedom, the precise control of weight, and a path to scale-up production. Here, Michela Ferraro explores the status of AM for jewellery manufacturers and highlights innovative and critically acclaimed pieces produced by the technology.
Additive Manufacturing has been almost effortlessly integrated into the jewellery industry's manufacturing workflow as a process for making complex forms for casting jewellery using wax or resin. The shift from a handmade process to a digital methodology to create casting forms is, to all intents and purposes, now crucial in order to remain competitive. So, whilst there has been no hesitation about the integration of wax or resin AM as a step in enabling jewellery manufacturers to scale up production, the ’direct’ processing of precious metals by Additive Manufacturing has been embraced far more slowly. My previous article ‘Innovation and differentiation: Precious metal Additive Manufacturing in the jewellery sector’, published in the Summer 2020 issue of Metal AM [1], largely described the evolution of metal AM in the jewellery sector. The article highlighted how the precious metal industry tried to replicate the successful experiences of other industries, such as aerospace and
Vol. 9 No. 4 © 2023 Inovar Communications Ltd
Fig. 1 'Vertebrae 264' brooch (2020), designed by Stefania Lucchetta. Materials are anodised titanium and steel. Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) was the primary technology used. The piece is hand finished using sandblasting and polishing (Courtesy Stefania Lucchetta)
Metal Additive Manufacturing | Winter 2023
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Additive Manufacturing jewellery
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