01
Stone setting microscopes
Setting fine stones at scale requires magnification at the bench. One of our founders ran a bespoke jewelry business with a Leica at the bench; FusionOptics depth of field is the real difference between high-end and budget stereo microscopes. The A60 and S9i, with integrated cameras for live view and documentation, are reference scopes for high-end work. The GRS BenchMate is the modular ball-vise around which most setting workflows are built. BenchCam 4K turns any stereo scope into a documentation station.
02
Automated stone setting
The wildest corner of jewelry production. SuperbMelt's vision-guided robotic system sets up to 7 diamonds per second. Polyintech and Hajet build multi-nozzle wax-setting robots that place stones into wax models before casting. ALVMAC builds gantry-style pick-and-place systems originally designed for watch and jewelry assembly.
03
Diamond cutting automation
Synova's DaVinci Diamond Factory cuts all 57 facets of a round brilliant from rough automatically, using a 5-axis CNC and a laser, in minutes. Watching it run, knowing this used to be a multi-week skill passed down for generations, is mildly disorienting the first time. Dialit Systems makes one of the most widely adopted robotic faceting and polishing platforms, with thousands of units globally; WTOCD's EOS Bruter handles automatic girdle preforming. Manual cutting still dominates fancy shapes and the most valuable rough, but the production economics for round brilliants have shifted hard.
04
Direct metal printing
Most jewelry 3D printing prints a wax pattern that gets cast in metal afterward. A small set of machines now print the metal itself. XJet's NanoParticle Jetting (NPJ) is powderless, which sidesteps the safety and waste headaches of working with precious-metal powder; Incus Hammer Evo35 uses a lithography-based process for unusually clean surfaces at 35µm; Progol3D in Italy runs SLM with proprietary gold, platinum, and titanium powders. None of this is mainstream yet. A working jeweler's first reaction is usually some version of "wait, you can do that?"
05
3D printing for casting
The workhorse setup in modern small studios: a pattern printer makes a wax or castable-resin master, the master gets invested and cast in metal. Solidscape pioneered the high-precision wax printer category in the early 2000s. Formlabs cracked the market open for one-person studios when their SLA printers and castable resins dropped under five thousand dollars. EnvisionTEC/ETEC, Asiga, and B9Creations cover the higher end with DLP technology that's faster and more uniform across larger build plates.
06
Casting and refining
Vacuum-pressure casting from Indutherm (Germany) and induction casting from Galloni Aseg (Italy) are the engines behind most production studios; Yasui (Japan) is the premium choice for wax injection and casting at scale. Refining is the back half of the same workflow, because every studio that casts in precious metals also recovers scrap. Italimpianti Orafi, Balestri Technologies, and IKOI all build refining and recycling systems specifically for jewelry shops, with the kind of German and Italian engineering that carries a particular weight in the trade.
07
Enameling
Centuries-old craft, refined for the modern bench. Thompson Enamel (Kentucky) is the industry-standard supplier of enamel powders for cloisonné, champlevé, and painted work. Paragon Industries has been making jewelry-specific enameling kilns since 1948. Spinks EPIC handles automated multi-color cold enameling for high-volume runs of pendants, charms, and bangles.
08
Bench tools and power equipment
The everyday workhorses on every jewelry bench. Foredom flexshafts remain the staple for general bench work; brushless micromotors from NSK and Saeshin have become widely adopted for precision setting and engraving. Rolling mills from Durston, precision titanium saws from Knew Concepts, modern dust extraction from Quatro and Arbe.
09
Gemology and identification
Telling natural diamonds from CVD or HPHT-grown ones is now table stakes. GIA's iD100 and De Beers' DiamondView are the reference instruments for that screening, both required reading at any serious lab. Sarine's Galaxy goes further: it maps a diamond's inclusions in 3D so cutters can plan rough for maximum yield. The interesting newcomer is Magilabs from Finland, which has spent the last decade building lab-grade Raman, FTIR, and UV-Vis-NIR spectrometers (GemmoRaman, GemmoFtir, GemmoSphere) at prices that put real spectroscopy within reach of small labs and serious gem dealers.
10
Lab-grown diamonds and synthetic gems
Lab-grown diamonds are the most-discussed shift in the jewelry industry since the Kimberley Process. Element Six (a De Beers subsidiary) has been making industrial CVD diamond for decades, mostly for industrial use, increasingly for jewelry. Diamond Foundry built a vertically integrated business out of San Francisco; WD Advanced Materials (rebranded from WD Lab Grown Diamonds in 2025) holds down US-based CVD production. Less talked about: Chatham has been quietly producing flux-grown emerald, ruby, and sapphire since 1938. The lab-grown category is older than people realize.
11
AR try-on and retail tech
Showing a customer what an engagement ring will look like on her hand without the awkward dance of an actual fitting used to be a science-fair pitch. Now it's a retail expectation. Perfect Corp (YouCam) leads in beauty-meets-jewelry AR; Banuba's TINT SDK is what most engineering teams adopt for serious hand tracking and physics; Tangiblee powers Pandora and similar large-retail rollouts; MirrAR, Camweara, GlamAR, and TryonJewel cover small-to-mid retail with Shopify-friendly drop-ins. Online customizers, letting shoppers configure metal, stone, and setting before ordering, are the close cousin, led by platforms like Gemist.
12
AI in jewelry
Generative AI for jewelry design is younger than most of the categories on this list, and right now it's a handful of teams. Arcade and Blng AI both ship consumer-facing AI design tools; Ruby Kinglet (us) builds the broader workflow stack across generative design, photography, customizers, and CAD prep. Sarine Advisor and Octonus's Pacor have been doing AI-assisted diamond planning for years, well before "AI" carried marketing weight. GemLightbox uses AI for product photography. Most of what makes a piece of jewelry possible is still hardware, beautifully engineered hardware often invented decades ago, and the AI layer is just starting to integrate with it.
