The Cross

The Cross :)
The brief was to make an ornate cross, 90mm high by 65mm wide with scrolly work in it..
I drew the base with Rhino to get us as far as a weight estimate then filled it in with tsplines for the curly wurly stuff :)

Just dumping in here.. only part done, will sort once its all uploaded :)

Start with a clip of the first bit :)



and some imagery :)

The Raw Tsplines geometry in production

Aclose up of the detail

The Render

Off to DeskProto for pathing

And onto the minitech for milling.. roughing pass.

and the first bit done :)

The Final bit, the knucle that holds it all together

Then time to split off the supports

and assemble!

A quick dusting of ocre for pictures, then split it all back up for casting..

Finally Finished :)

The chain procured and the St Christopher attached

And just as an idea of scale :)

 

(some months on from this I have recieved a repeat order for a second cross, 20% smaller than the original)

The Ouroborus.

The final stage in a a very long job has been completed.. the Ouroubus is ALIVE!!!

This was an awesome job to work on. I produced this piece for Holloway Diamonds.. it is truly fanstastic to have so much gold to play with ;)

I am only the designer so the client details are not mine to share or expand on, but to own a piece of this magnitude you are SOMEONE..

The deal with an Ouroborus is that it is a mythical magical beast that swallows it own tail, the ultimate symbol of eternity, rebirth.

according to Wikipedia

The Ouroboros (or Uroborus)^[1] is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. It comes from the Greek words oura (Greek ουρά) meaning "tail" and bόros (Greek βόρος) meaning "eating", thus "he who eats the tail".^[2]
The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end (the mythical phoenix has a similar symbolism). It can also represent the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting before any beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished. The ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological symbolism, but has also been frequently used in alchemical illustrations, where it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist's opus. It is also often associated with Gnosticism, and Hermeticism.

the piece was based on some rather sketchy pictures and some images from the web, lots of reasearch as well as months of emails between Holloways's and the client, it finally arrived at me as a patch work of imagery and instructions.

There is a Video clip of the piece at around  80% complete at the bottom of the post.

The initial CAD work looked like so..

and from this the feedback was  "too many teeth, scale not snakey enough.." thank goodness tis only CAD!

Some design alterations and a few tweaks arrived at this basic idea

which was .. naturally.. LOVED..

it went off to casting.. 100 grams of gold.. :-) !!

and then after some huge amount of clean up, fitting a spring hinge  and setting the diamonds and rubies we finally have this magnificent piece!

I love these projects :)

Here is the clip. its in 720P if watch on youtube :)

Wax Video

A job my wife cut for me :)

Design and video.

Hear no Evil.

This job is for another jeweller.. a series fo three rings.

See no evil, Hear no evil, and talk no evil.

intersting one :)

And the hand components in wax :), a series of six sets cut.

Another From-To.. upside down black diamonds!

Some stuff from my daily grind :)

The design process..

I am often asked how the cad process works. how do I "just draw" a ring..how do I know the client will like it?

the answer is simple.. I don't. The process is the same as any jeweller uses, a consultation takes place, some ideas are gathered from the client, a general direction.. then a quick series of hand sketches take place with the client, to cement the direction of the design.. then finally we do cad to verify the design.. the cad component is actually the easiest part of it all, if all the other steps have been done properly..

Starting a CAD job with all the info makes it a breeze.. if you approach this the wrong way around and try to sell the cad first, you will find yourself chasing your own tail and redrawing work countless times. The act of sketching in front of the client makes them part of that process, makes them the "co-designer" and when they see "their" ideas come to life in cad, they embrace it, rather than the opposite, seeing a cold cad image and then trying to apply their needs to it and forcing you into a endless spiral of redrawing. 

Custom CAD is not easy.. you are not selling a fixed item, you are applying mass production systems to bespoke clients...

Embrace the old way!!! Sketch sketch sketch!

(then cad your ass off)

The sketch of the client idea..

 

The Cad, resulting from the design variations picked by theclient.

 

The finally the groovy bit.. machining the wax etc...

The raw casting back from the casting house.

and the cleaned up casting, ready for setting.. will update post once its back

And that concludes the entire series from an idea in pencil.. right through to the finished article.

Thank you for taking the time to read through it :)

Some handwork.. how I LOVE hinges....