The rapid prototyping applied to jewellery

• Grant number: 13/10819-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2013
• End date: December 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Industrial Design - Product Design
• Principal Investigator: Osmar Vicente Rodrigues
• Grantee: Paula Lumi Goulart Nishimura
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura, Artes e Comunicação (FAAC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Bauru. Bauru , SP, Brazil

Abstract

An increasing number of companies are investing in new technologies that, besides improving the final product, assist and facilitate in the manufacturing process. Rapid prototyping machines are known for speed in production, due to the accuracy and versatility in executing complex geometries. These machines can work with various types of materials, reproducing parts quicker and more accurately and also dispense the process of making molds. Jewelry is a branch of industry that sells products made with delicate, high quality workmanship; the final product must be flawless. One of the many jewelry production techniques is lost wax casting, which consists of sculpting in wax the desired model (piece) to be made, so that a mold can be produced from it, and then be filled with molten metal. In this sense, Rapid Prototyping has much to offer for jewelry as it can produce such models directly from a computer generated drawing, regardless of its geometry, degree of dimensional accuracy and surface quality, and they can even print directly into wax, since there are equipment capable of doing so today. Furthermore, by means of Rapid Prototyping, the jeweler may simply bathe the desired metal over a plastic model produced by this technology, and thus obtain a prototype of the final product. Therefore, this research intends to perform comparative tests, studies based upon two models to be created from the same design, one using the conventional process (manual modeling wax) and the other using Rapid Prototyping technology. With this, the intention is to show the potential of such technology in the jewelry business and at the same time its technical and economic feasibility, and the subsequent commercial impact. (AU)