It Takes a Village: How We Make Stuff in New York – Part One

Etsy is about to roll out a new way for us sellers to describe our process. I can choose to describe myself as the maker of jewelry or as a designer of jewelry. A maker is the one who actually manufactures the piece, a designer would be the one to work out the idea, the plan, which is executed by someone else. The distinction is similar between working in construction or working in architectural design. One person makes the plan, the other executes it.

In very tiny shops, a person can of course be both, assuming they have the various skill sets needed, and additionally assuming that, as a shop owner, they also have the time to be a maker. But for the most part, that’s not how it works at all.

Jewelry design and manufacturing encompasses many different skill sets. And in high end manufacturing, where the best makers are producing their magic, the artisans who produce a piece of jewelry usually have a specialty that they have spent years perfecting. Meaning that in most cases, that is what they do all day. Also, for high end pieces, more sophisticated tools and work spaces are needed – as well as permits in some cases (in casting, for example). And in order to get a return on your investment, you will have to spend most of your time using that equipment to make things.

Here's a short list of specialty jobs in the jewelry industry, listed in (more or less) the order of appearance in the manufacturing process, followed by a brief description of what they do.

CAD Designer: a CAD designer uses Rhino or some other design software to work out the technical details of a piece, including metal depth, prong length and space needed for the tools of the setter, polisher, etc., and they should have the design skill to make it all look good. Some CAD designers also do the 3D printing of the piece, other times you can find 3D printing offered by casting houses.

Caster: someone in casting will (or should) know mold making, 3D printing (including maintaining these delicate machines), investment making and all of the other steps involved in casting. Note that casting is a very equipment heavy manufacturing step and it is very expensive to start a business as a caster.

Polisher: after casting, the jewelry pieces need to be tumbled, the sprue cut off, and pre polished. A polisher knows all these steps. Polishers also usually offer plating, such as rhodium plating for white gold, and others can do pen plating, black rhodium, rose gold plating, etc. Polishers are in the unique position to see each jewelry piece twice, once for pre polish and once for final polish, after the setter or jeweler have done their work.

Jeweler: technically, jewelers are goldsmiths. They have learned metal smithing like soldering techniques. They can minimally add jump rings and posts and bails, shorten chains or add links. Sophisticated jewelers can make an entire piece from scratch if they have the time. Before CAD, many jewelers did the wax carvings needed to make a piece. But this can also be a separate job.

Setter: if gemstones are to be set in the piece, the setter gets to work on it after the jeweler has done all the soldering jobs. With the exception of lazer solder (low heat solder that requires a special lazer soldering machine), gems cannot be heated to the high temperatures needed to melt the solder needed to connect two pieces of metal, i.e. a post to a setting, or a jump ring to a chain. This is why the industry prefers that the jeweler does his work first, then the setter sets the pieces (and then the polisher removes the tool marks and shines it up). Setting can be a simpler process if the pieces they set are pre manufactured with the seat or setting beads already in place. Or it can be very sophisticated like hand set pave done under a microscope with a 45x magnification. The setter then drills the seat, opens up or drills guideholes, shapes the prongs to fine tips, and gently folds the metal over the gemstone. The ‘gently’ part is especially important in colored gems, many of which are so soft that they easily break if too much force is used.

As you can imagine, this list is not exhaustive. There are also engravers, who might do anything from lazering your name into the inside of a ring with a machine, or etching a detailed family crest onto a signet ring. There are gemstone cutters who can repair broken gems or turn a wonky native cut into something spectacular. There are pearl and bead stringers, and those who drill holes into gems and pearls (many gemstone cutters have this skill). And I’m sure I am forgetting something!

It’s also important to note that these skills overlap. Many Polishers can make jewelry or have rudimentary soldering skills. And many jewelers can also set stones. My setter can also lazer solder and polish, if need be. But the top people in each field will prefer to work in just their specialty. This ensures that you get the best possible result in each step in the jewelry making process.

At CRD, we utilize almost all of these in making each piece. Exceptions are ring castings which do not need any jewelry work done, or if we make a piece that doesn’t use gemstones (we really don’t but we could). This means that each piece we make undergoes at least 4 stages, assuming we already have a CAD: Casting, pre polish, setting, final polish.

The Diamond District in New York literally has thousands of tiny shops that specialize in one or another aspect, or several of them, at their bench. We work with about 10 of them, though the main people are our casting service, Daniel Casting, our setters Pierre and Ethan, Alex our Engraver, Vasken the jeweler, and Ricardo and Claire who run the polishing shop. For design, I work mostly with my old buddy Brandy B. who is also a learned bench jeweler but works mainly in CAD.

Brandy executes my design sketches and layouts and she has a good feel for the kinds of design elements we are so fond of. She also knows our setters, polishers and the jeweler, and can assess their skill set. This is important because her designs should accommodate their abilities as well as their tools. I.e. polishing equipment cannot get into all the nooks and crannies of our designs, so we don’t design with that much space on the top of the ring, just enough for the beads and millgrain, which is calculated out ahead of time though not put into the CAD itself. We don’t want to see shiny metal between the gems because it is hard to polish cleanly around a set of prongs for instance.

To keep track of everything, we follow the procedures of most jewelry business by utilizing job envelopes. These contain all the parts and instructions that are needed to make the piece, as well as our contact information so that we don’t get mixed up with anyone else. Having all details listed there, such as ring size or metal type, allows everyone in the chain to double check if anything is wrong, i.e. if casting made the ring in the wrong size or metal, or if the setter mixed up the colors in the layout (this rarely happens but it has!). This system has saved me fairly often from mailing out a piece that’s done wrong, or catching the wrong metal or ring size before it is too late and all the stones are already set.

We go to the city every Tuesday but now that it is busier again we may add our second day back in – it got dropped during Covid. Many of our manufacturers are willing to funnel the job envelopes to the next step but often they are busy too and don’t want to run errands for other shops. So we keep this to a minimum.

As you can see in this summary, it takes between just a couple and several weeks to make a piece, depending on how many steps are involved and how busy everyone is. The polisher might just take a day, but the setter may take 3 weeks if the layout is complicated and he’s waiting for a quiet afternoon so he can get it done right.

All of the shops we use are small family businesses or ‘one man shows’ like Pierre and Ethan, who work just by themselves - no secretary, no billing department, and nobody to do the work if they are out sick or on vacation.

Now this blog got too long and I didn’t really wrap back around to the initial bifurcation posed by Etsy. Am I a maker or a designer? Both? Neither? Something else? A Jacky of a few trades?

I will tell you in the next blog.