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Success Stories

Going for gold - together. 
Emile Erasmus,
Winner: 
Anglogold Ashanti Riches of Africa  2002.

 

As lecturer in jewellery design and manufacture at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology then, John of 3D Creative Workshops introduced Emile's student group to Rhino3D.

 

Emile proceeded to win AngloGold Ashanti’s Riches of Africa Gold Jewellery Design Competition in 2002, making waves in industry with his utilisation of 3D printing. This 500 gram 18 kt gold bracelet was produced with the Sanders Modelmaker II – an early 1998 model, still very much prototyping rather than manufacturing technology – a far cry yet from the Solidscape 3Z Pro of today. But what an extraordinary result. South Africa was proud.

Hanwen Shen,
Finalist: ITS#TEN 2011.

 

Hanwen produced a series of eight super-sleek and futuristic neck and nape pieces for her MA Fashion Artefact at the London College of Fashion.

 

John suggested the potential of NURBS geometry to create freeform surface models and after a few one-to-one modelling tutorials, Hanwen embraced Rhino3D.

 

Together we explored the various additive manufacture (AM) options available – considering both aesthetics and functionality, as well as budget and ltime constraints. The Stratasys Fortus FDM machine produced these pieces in ABS - offering flexibility, light weight, the possibility of sanding surfaces to an extremely high finish and the additional ability to withstand the secondary chemical process of electroforming.

 

Finally, we tackled assembling the parts neatly and fitting metal box catches to some pieces, while taking care to maintain the mirror finishes.

 

Like many foreign students in the UK, Hanwen struggled with the English language. Hanwen was particularly pleased with John's patient ear.

 

All the hard work paid off when Hanwen made it into the ITS#TEN jewellery awards!

 

 

‘As an international student, I feel very hard to express myself and understanding others at the beginning due to the language problem.

 

  It is really an exhausted process to express my designs and understand the feedbacks that John gave to me. (You have to face a lot of professional words that you never know before.) Sometimes even I couldn’t keep on the discussion, but he still very patient and make sure I completely understand. John always use drawing (He has excellent drawing skill.) or show me the samples directly to explain the making methods. He let me know the options of realizing the design as much as he can.

 

   He shows me what the difficulties during these methods, and encourage me to do experiments. He prefers students to learn from the experiments, but never let us waste money on that. He let me know exactly which materials should be used in the making process and which store sells them with a good price. I feel both my professional knowledge and English are improved a lot. At the beginning of the term, I felt confused and unconfident about my works. Now I understand what is design and how to know the realizing methods in a very short time.

  

And I am so happy that I can be one of the finalists in ITS#Ten Jewelry competition because of my postgraduate works.

   I’m really appreciating john! ‘

 

19-05-2011

Hanwen Shen, MA Fashion Artefact graduate 2010/2011, London College of Fashion

hanwenjewelry@gmail.com'

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