Kari's rings designed using Anarkik3D's Cloud9 software
My eldest daughter Kari got engaged end of December and told me that a ring I had designed a number of years ago in titanium with a oval diamond was her dream engagement ring.
In January i-materialise announced their new service – 3D printing titanium (see http://bit.ly/hHMMnL) – and when I mentioned this as a way to make the ring she was all for it. For me this is my dream come true – the combination of organic modelling using Cloud9 and 3D printing titanium means the design can be super fluid with titanium flowing around the stone. And all for my own daughter …
We had a great time in London looking at possible diamonds and she and her fiancée settled for a square corner cut one. As a jeweller my materials are mainly titanium, niobium, aluminium – I don’t work much in precious metals so we are working with proper jeweller, Teena Ramsey, to get the designs for both the engagement and wedding rings to be an elegant integrated set. The final design is for the wedding ring to be in titanium and the engagement ring to be in gold which Teena will make, set the diamond, and fit it to the 3D printed titanium wedding ring. It sounds complicated but its working out very elegantly.
The process so far has been designing the titanium wedding ring using Anarkik3D’s Cloud9 haptic 3D modelling package (of course – http://bit.ly/lJR7t link to anarkikangels website and Cloud9), getting a test ring 3D printed in steel by Shapeways for Kari to see and try on (too small!), creating an accurate digital diamond in Rhino, mocking up the engagement ring with the diamond as a digital model, emailing it to Kari and Rob and getting the designs passed by them.
Final adjustments were completed this week, the ring size checked, and the .stl files of all the rings uploaded to Shapeways to get prototypes for Kari in London to try on for size, and for Teena to use to fit the gold engagement ring to the wedding ring.
The pic above shows the two rings together.
Now I have to be ultra patient waiting for the prototypes to arrive. Meanwhile I am looking at the timing for getting the titanium 3D printed and for Teena to make the gold ring and set diamond. I am panicking a bit as the Wedding is in June and it is May 1st this Sunday. Just hope there is no more tweaking necessary. Then there is the groom’s wedding ring……..
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