THE ONLY way to go is WATER JET cutting!!! I have found
on water jet machining companies, and have contacted
one. He replied the same afternoon. He said the machine would cut
the same speed as lead. With the most often used tip, the loss of
metal is .030", which is alot if considering gold. The entire
loss is in the pickup pan, so it is really not loss. There is NO
heat involved, there is NO distortion or any kind of preassure that
would cause work hardening. They are completely CAD driven and are
precise down to .001 of an inch. There are companies all over the
world that you can job out the work to. Of course, the only reason
to use this sort of technology is to repeat your patterns hundreds
or thousands of times. If anyone is really wanting to unload their
wallet, you can BUY a machine new for around $ 60,000.00 US. Below
are some web sites where you can read about the processes. Hope
this helps.
http://wj.net/waterjet/index/htm
(home page)
http://wj.net/JobShops.html
(a listing of shops that do this kind of work)
http://www.irwj.com
(Ingersol Rand…manufactures these machines, web page has info)
http://www.waterjetconnection.com
(ceramic tile cutting company) ABB I-R waterjet systems L.L.C.
1-800-286-2971 This company invented the waterjet cutting systems
Duane Baysinger
Studio B
Corbin, KY