Jewelry Customer Story

In 1997, Bob Swarthout, owner of Stucki Jewelers, a retail jeweler since 1904, had an idea to improve an existing product - a ring that symbolized a person’s life. He trademarked the idea and created The Story Ring. This special ring was sure to evoke a strong reaction in the market. However, finding a way to manufacture The Story Ring efficiently was going to be a challenge. With Cimagrafi, Stucki Jewelers got its chance.

The Story Ring is a custom piece of jewelry with five or six panels containing images that collectively tell the tale of a person`s life. Images represent personal milestones, interests and achievements from a wide variety of categories including sports, family, occupations and military.

Each panel on the ring measures 6 x 8 mm with less than 1 mm depth and contains as many as 16 different layers per image. After carving a sample story ring by hand for the first time, the ramifications of trying to produce large quantities became obvious to Swarthout. The process would be too slow and costly to make the piece profitable.

Standing in a friend`s workshop one day, Swarthout realized that jewelry could be made using a milling (ring milling) machine. That was the first time the idea of The Story Ring became feasible. Stucki Jewelers set up Generational Jewelers to exclusively manufacture and market The Story Ring.

Generational Jewelers put a milling machine with an artistic CAD/CAM package in place from the start, but did not get the desired results. Parts were out of tolerance, the finish was not acceptable and the turnaround time was just too long.

After six months, they turned to Cimagrafi and implemented it with a Folken Mill. "We converted to Cimagrafi after our project engineer viewed the product being used by another manufacturing jeweler," says Dan Leslie, Senior Design Engineer. The new ring mill was more accurate and held better tolerances, while Cimagrafi gave Leslie the flexibility for which he was looking.

Customers can select five or six images (depending on ring size) from a catalog of over 450 images or provide custom materials such as photographs, drawings, logos, or business cards. Cimagrafi converts these two-dimensional images into three-dimensional surfaces (3d digitizing) and subsequently creates a file for the computer-driven milling machine.

The manufacturing efficiency of The Story Ring has resulted from the use of metal molds, designed and manufactured in Cimagrafi. Using Cimagrafi`s P2P module, the image is molded into the desired 3-D contour and then a negative of the 3-D surface is created by reversing the X and Z axes.

Before milling, the necessary stock, tools and geometries are selected, and the layout organized. The toolpath file is created and transferred to the computer that controls the milling machine.

A metal mold of the 3-D digitized image is created on the mill. The mold is injected with plastic to produce a replica of the image, which is then investment cast with 18-karat gold to produce the image panel.

Using Cimagrafi, Generational Jewelers has succeeded in simplifying the manufacturing process of The Story Ring while maintaining the quality of the intricate designs that appear on the panels. "The Story Ring is an emotional experience for its recipients. I have seen grown men weep when they see their lives presented in front of them," says Swarthout.

Making intricate designs easy to manufacture, Cimagrafi is helping to bring this very special piece of jewelry into the market.

About Stucki Jewelers
Type of Business: retail jewelers with customization facilities
Company Founded in: 1904
Number of Employees: 9
Number & Configuration of Seats: 2 Version 6.0 Gold less 4 axis

About Generational Jewelers
Type of Business: manufacturer and wholesalers for The Story Ring
Company Founded in: 1997
Number of Employees: 4
Using Cimagrafi since: 1998
Switched from: Artcam/Modelmaster
Training time: 2 days

Pull Quote:
"Other graphic products lacked the power, precision and flexibility we found using Cimagrafi. We are really excited by the potential that this software and this process have unveiled for us. We are already launching into other new product ideas and projects," says Bob Swarthout, owner of Stucki Jewelers.