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 Post subject: Re: Require Fully Automatic Faceting Machine with 3D softwar
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2020 4:02 pm 
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Greg,

I know of no machine that does it start to finish. Even in the diamond industry only certain steps are automated these days.

In my opinion no automated machine will ever be able to economically cut high value colored stones. Automation relies in large part on being fed a supply of consistent stock to be processed. Colored stones are just too variable and unique to be processed that way. Especially when working in the sizes and species that the OP said he wanted to produce.

I also understand what you mean by doing this in his location. There is a large well trained workforce of low cost labor in the market there already. This makes it less likely that automation provides advantage economically.

I think his request has it's origin in a lack of knowledge rather than a solid business plan to set up a large cutting facility.


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 Post subject: Re: Require Fully Automatic Faceting Machine with 3D softwar
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2020 4:47 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 12:04 am
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Location: Idaho
The Israeli's have been using automation to analyze, cut and polish emeralds for some time.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080408102835.htm

https://www.emerald18.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/H.-Stark-_-Co.-Ltd.-%E2%80%93-Company-Profile-.pdf

https://www.ganoksin.com/article/gem-cutting-machinery/

http://archives.dailynews.lk/2002/06/04/bus12.html

Also, there are the Swarovski colored gems. In their literature they speak of "latest technology" and technologists, not craftsmen or tradition. When their colored gems first came out they bragged about the precision machine cutting but in today's jewelry world that is kind of not PC.

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 Post subject: Re: Require Fully Automatic Faceting Machine with 3D softwar
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2020 5:45 pm 
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Alan,
Yes I agree they have been using robotics to cut, but only certain aspects of the entire process. In reading the link you posted on Ganoskin, my take away is the same as I already know by owning and operating a Jang801.

Quote from article "The machines are only effective if you’re cutting one type of stone in one shape and size. Once you finish a run you can change it, but you have to have enough rough available In the next run to justify it. You couldn’t do blue tourmaline, for example, because you could never put enough volume together in an automated machine." the point Steve brought up.

Just the same as my Jang. If I dop up 100 dops of rough of a said material I can run through them as fast as the machine and I can process, changing laps, applying polish compounds, inspecting, transfer dopping and do it again after transfer, even this article brings up the cost of a technician (that would be me in this case) and nobody is giving me $100 p/hr. Yes I can take good quality rough preform it, dop it and run it through the machine maybe a little faster than by hand, but that would not be considered production cutting. Yes if I want to cut say 10 stones, 10mm Quartz, Synthetics or CZ of a said shape and style, yes they will be calibrated stones but they are still only worth what they are and not really worth the time and costs to do. The Jang801 was sold on information that it could produce 100 2mm RB stones in a work day. I found it odd though they did not offer dops under 3mm with the machine. 2mm dops were custom order and you would likly need a 1.5mm dop to actually run 2mm sized stones. I will admit the money would have been well spent elsewhere, but I have found some satisfaction in what I can utilize it in. The same as most of us have done working in the gem and jewelry trades with our tool toys.

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 Post subject: Re: Require Fully Automatic Faceting Machine with 3D softwar
PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2020 10:24 am 
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As Greg says the promise of automatic cutting has never really been fulfilled. The big problems are getting appropriate feeder stock of rough, recovery, flexibility, running and maintenance costs. We still get better results by hand.

As mentioned in my prior post, the closest I ever saw was the machine at Hans Werner's Paul Wild company in Kirschweiler near Idar in Germany. One of your linked articles was regarding this machine.

You will notice that most of the linked articles are pretty old now. Still, automated cutting has not caught on as a widely deployed technology. This is because it still doesn't offer a financial advantage in the industry.

The best implementations so far have been to particular steps of the process like analysing rough on very expensive stones, and preforming for calibrated stones after they have been analyzed, rough shaped, and hand dopped by workers. Not end to end solutions.


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