|
Bob Hendricks, owner of Hendricks
Manufacturing, adapted a CNC machine for cutting wax models for
class rings and expanded his business by 50 percent. The typical way
of making models for rings and other jewelry is to cut the wax by
hand or with a pantograph. This is slow and time consuming.
Hendricks configured a CNC machine to cut the models automatically
from school emblems that are scanned into a computer. Because the
CNC machine cuts wax much faster than the previous methods,
Hendricks can charge less for class rings than other suppliers. The
combination of his attractive prices and fast turnaround has
attracted notice in the industry, bringing Hendricks a huge increase
in orders. "We are growing at a tremendous pace and will probably be
up by 50 percent two years in a row," he says. Hendricks recently
bundled the necessary CNC machine accessories and his custom CAM
routines into a package called Create-A-Ring that he is offering as
a curriculum to schools with CNC mills.
Hendricks Manufacturing is located in
Kearns, Utah. The company has been in business for more than 10
years, producing and selling jewelry on both a wholesale and retail
basis. On the retail side of the business, Hendricks produces a
range of custom and short-run fine jewelry items. The wholesale side
of the business is involved mainly in producing personalized signet
rings, such as class rings for schools. Other organizations such as
sports teams, private companies, and law enforcement agencies also
buy the rings. Currently Hendricks Manufacturing employs five people
in addition to the owner.
Lost wax process
The process of making a class ring is
similar to that for making other pieces of fine jewelry. Called the
lost wax casting process, it begins with the designer hand carving
the shape of the piece in wax. The wax is then dipped into in
plaster-of-paris like substance called dental investment that
hardens around it. This goes into a oven then heated to 1350-degrees
that melts out the wax. Gold or silver is then poured into the
cavity left in the dental investment by the lost wax. Once the metal
hardens, the whole structure is dunked in water, which shatters the
investment leaving the jewelry. If it is a one-of-a-kind piece, the
piece is polished and the process ends there. For class rings, which
are produced in larger quantities, the next step is make a rubber
mold from the first metal ring. Wax is poured into the rubber mold
to make additional wax pieces, which are dipped, in the dental
investment and taken through the rest of the lost wax casting
process.
Large suppliers of class rings typically
use a pantograph instead of carving the school emblem freehand into
wax. "This is more accurate but it's still a manual process, and
it's slow and time consuming," says Hendricks. "But it's been the
industry standard for more than 100 years." Depending on the
complexity of the school's emblem, carving the wax mold with a
pantograph can take a few hours or more than a day. When Hendricks
first saw a CNC machine in action, he realized that it could be
programmed to cut wax models automatically. "With these machines,
you can mill any design that you can scan in or create on the
computer," he explains.
|
"The beauty of it is that the machine is
far more accurate than a pantograph. Also, the machine cuts much
faster than a human can."
Hendricks tried using a few other CNC
machines before settling on the Techno CNC milling machine from
Techno Isel, New Hyde Park, New York. This machine was designed for
production routing and drilling on a wide variety of materials
including wood, plastic, MDF, solid surfacing materials, and
nonferrous metals. "The Techno machine was faster than the other
machines I had tried," Hendricks explains. "It also appeared to be
more durable than the others, which often broke down for
considerable periods of time." The reason the Techno machine is more
durable than other machines in its price range is due to the
materials used in its construction. For example, the machine uses
anti-backlash ball screws. These screws have excellent power
transmission due to the rolling ball contact between the nut and
screws, and this type of contact ensures low friction, low wear, and
long life. In addition, the machine constructed on steel
stress-relieved bases with hardened steel linear ways. "Its
shaft-and-bearing system produces very smooth, play-free motion and
is an extremely rigid system that produces high-quality cuts,"
Hendricks adds.
Mold-making with CNC
After he acquired the machine, Hendricks
spent some time programming the CAM system that came with it to
produce the ring styles he wanted. Currently he has routines for
creating four different ring styles with three variations per style.
Some styles have a stone on top, for example, while others have a
design carved into the top surface. Some rings have lettering or
other graphics on the sides while others don't. "With these
routines, we can create just about any signet ring," Hendricks
explains. "The routines create the four basic surfaces for each of
the different ring styles. The design or graphics are scanned into
the computer, and then selected by the operator when prompted for it
by the programming routine."
The first step in making wax models on
the Techno machine is to set up the machine. First, the operator
installs an indexing head on the mill's base. Then he installs a wax
ring mandrel and places the wax ring blank onto the mandrel. After
putting the cutting tool in the chuck, the set-up is complete. Next
the operator goes to the CAM system and selects one of the custom
routines. After entering the information that the routine requests,
all that is left is to give the command to start the cutting
process. "You press start and you can walk off and leave the
machine," says Hendricks. Depending on the complexity of the graphic
elements, the cutting process takes about an hour.
Because the cutting goes so quickly,
Hendricks is able to charge about half of what other jewelers charge
for making a wax model. For class type rings, his fee averages about
$150. With such a competitive price, orders have been increasing
steadily since the company acquired the Techno machine. Class rings
are not the only rings being produced on the mill, however.
Hendricks is also getting a lot of short-run jobs. Wax models for
these jobs run anywhere from $35 to several hundred dollars. The
rings themselves cost $25 if they are sterling silver.
|
Gold is charged by the gram weight. With
Hendricks' process, very nice personalized rings become an
affordable item for many organizations. In contrast, custom and
short-run pieces produced from hand carved wax models cost start at
about $500 because it costs almost that much to produce the wax
model alone.
Hendricks has made thousands of rings on the Techno mill and it has
proved to be as reliable as he hoped. "It has been operating
perfectly, seven days a week for over a year," he says. He has
adapted the mill to include a fourth axis, giving it the rotary
milling capability to cut letters around the circumference of the
ring.
To do this, he physically unplugs the y
axis and plugs a rotary axis into the opening. The CAM routines he
uses are still three-axis programs but this machine configuration
allows them to simulate four-axis milling.
A step-by-step guide
After he had configured the Techno
machine and CAM system to cut wax ring models, Hendricks put
together an instruction manual for his employees that took them
step-by-step through the use of the system. When the local reseller
of MasterCAM software saw it, he proposed that Hendricks sell his
adaptations as a complete system. Hendricks liked the idea and named
it Create-A-Ring, which is now available on his web site (www.create-a-ring.net)
and from MasterCAM software dealers. "Create-A-Ring includes the
indexing head, the holding fixtures, the cutters, 50-60 pieces of
clip art, and enough wax to cut 18 rings," Hendricks explains.
Create-A-Ring sells for $1,250. "Basically once someone has a Techno
machine, MasterCAM software, and my package, they have everything
they need to make rings except the casting capabilities," Hendricks
adds.
Currently, he is targeting the education market primarily. "If a
school has casting capabilities, the students can use my package and
make their own rings right in class. Or they can take the wax model
to a local jeweler or send it to me for casting," Hendricks says.
"If a kid can make a ring, we have taught him a skill. He can go out
into the real world and get a job in mold factory or in aerospace
industry."
By configuring a CNC machine to cut wax ring models, Bob Hendricks
has achieved two excellent outcomes. He has given his own business,
Hendricks Manufacturing, a significant competitive advantage,
causing sales to grow tremendously. Second, he is giving others the
tools and instruction to make their own rings, and perhaps to expand
from there into a job or career.
|
