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The weekly jewellery journal

The Bench Journal

The weekly journal for the jewellery industry: craft, AI, and CAD/CAM. Written from the bench, not the marketing desk.

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LatestThe Bench and the Model

How to wrap a flat pattern round a ring in Blender

Draw the pattern flat at true size, flow it onto the ring, then measure where marks land. How it worked in Blender, how it failed on a bent band, and the fix.

8 October 2026·6 min readRead the article →
A ring with a leaf pattern on its outer face, above the same face laid flat as a ruled strip with a row of leaves drawn on it
Tool of the Week

Is Rhino or Blender Better for Jewellery Design?

Rhino for anything going to a caster: exact NURBS surfaces, real tolerances, mature jewellery plugins. Blender for free sculptural exploration and rendering.

27 September 2026·4 min read
The Bench and the Model

STL vs 3DM: Which File Format for Jewellery CAD and 3D Printing

Work in 3DM for as long as the design can change. Only export to STL once it's locked. Converting early costs you editability; converting late costs nothing.

27 September 2026·4 min read
Tool of the Week

Best Jewellery CAD Courses UK: An Honest Comparison

A plain look at the UK options for learning jewellery CAD: a resource curator, a Rhino reseller, a trade body, Udemy, and where a one-to-one course sits.

20 September 2026·7 min read
The Bench and the Model

Can I learn Rhino jewellery design in an online course?

Yes. The core Rhino skill transfers well to a screen. What online cannot do is watch your file in real time. Here is what online gives you and what it cannot.

12 September 2026·3 min read
The Bench and the Model

How long does it take to learn CAD for jewellery making?

A practitioner's honest timeline: from first session to fluent enough to model a client brief. The software is the easy part.

12 September 2026·3 min read
The Bench and the Model

How to 3D print jewellery from a Rhino file

Export a watertight mesh, respect wall-thickness minimums, then choose an in-house printer or a casting bureau based on volume and turnaround.

12 September 2026·5 min read
A cast pave-set disc with a blue centre stone, held between two fingers over the bench
The Bench and the Model

Claws in CAD, or left to the setter?

Should claws and stone holes be modelled in CAD or cut by hand at setting? The answer looks like craft, but time and cost make it a business decision.

11 September 2026·4 min read
Tool of the Week

Why a dry-run flag catches what your tests miss

Two passing test suites missed three real bugs in a scheduled automation. A --dry-run flag that showed what it was about to do caught all three in one pass.

6 September 2026·4 min read
Dark title card reading: what browser extensions can actually read, with the chrome://extensions address
Tool of the Week

What browser extensions can actually read, and how to check in thirty seconds

Check exactly what any browser extension is allowed to read on your computer, in about thirty seconds, using a screen you already have.

17 August 2026·4 min read
Tool of the Week

I measured 128 Instagram posts. Here is what the data told me to stop.

128 posts, five metrics, one discovery: 77% of posts were the format that reaches the fewest people. Here is how to read your own account before posting again.

16 August 2026·6 min read
Tool of the Week

The best AI tools for jewellery designers (workflow-tested)

Not a list of what exists. A map of where AI actually earns its place in a jewellery studio, tool by tool, and where it does not belong.

9 August 2026·4 min read
The Bench and the Model

How to run your first bespoke jewellery commission

What happens between a client's first message and an approved design: the stages, the common mistakes, and how to protect both parties.

9 August 2026·5 min read
The Bench and the Model

How to start a jewellery design business in the UK (CAD-first)

The CAD-first model for a UK jewellery design business: toolset, production route, legal setup, and what it looks like in practice.

9 August 2026·7 min read
The Bench and the Model

How to Price Handmade Jewellery: A Method You Can Actually Use

A worked method for pricing handmade jewellery in the UK, from true material cost through to the wholesale multiplier, with a silver and a gold example.

6 August 2026·8 min read
The Bench and the Model

How AI actually helps jewellery designers with their workflow

Not a round-up of design tools. A real breakdown of where AI enters the jewellery design and production workflow, step by step, and what it does not help with.

5 August 2026·5 min read
The Bench and the Model

How to learn Rhino 3D for jewellery making

The real learning order for Rhino in a jewellery context: what to start with, what to defer, and why most beginners learn it backwards.

4 August 2026·5 min read
The Bench and the Model

How to Become a Jewellery Designer in the UK (Without a Degree, and With No Experience)

The real UK routes into jewellery design, what a portfolio needs to contain, and why the job splits into three very different careers.

3 August 2026·7 min read
The Bench and the Model

How to Sell Handmade Jewellery: Where to Actually Sell It, and What It Pays

Every marketplace suits a different kind of handmade jewellery. Here's where each one fits, what it costs you, and what the work is actually worth.

3 August 2026·7 min read
Tool of the Week

How to stop your AI images being flagged as AI on Instagram and LinkedIn

Instagram and LinkedIn read metadata baked into every AI-generated image and show a 'made with AI' badge. What it is, what you can strip, and what you cannot.

3 August 2026·6 min read
Tool of the Week

How to Estimate a Gemstone's Carat Weight From Its Measurements

A stone's weight depends on its species as much as its size. Why a single formula gets it wrong, and how to estimate it before you set, buy or insure a stone.

26 July 2026·4 min read
The Bench and the Model

US vs UK Ring Size: Why the Charts Never Quite Agree

Two US-to-UK ring size charts rarely say the same thing. Here is why the systems don't translate cleanly, and what actually gets a ring to fit.

26 July 2026·3 min read
A gold horse-head ring cut cleanly from its studio background, mane intact
Tool of the Week

How to remove the background from jewellery photos (without destroying the piece)

Background removal quietly ruins gold. Here is why the usual trick fails on jewellery, the method that works, and the licensing trap nobody mentions.

22 July 2026·7 min read
The Bench Journal cover motif: a drawn gold girih star on ink
Tool of the Week

How to write luxury brand copy with Claude (and avoid the 5 tells that give it away)

Your customers can tell when copy was generated without a proper brief. The five patterns that mark AI-generated copy, and how to prompt your way out of them.

12 July 2026·4 min read
Diagram of the MakerOS agent system running on a studio computer
The Ledger

The AI System That Runs My Business (I Wrote It Up as a Research Paper)

Almost everything in my business is run by one AI system I built on a normal laptop. Here is what it does, in plain language, and the research paper behind it.

22 June 2026·6 min read
The Bench Journal cover motif: a drawn gold girih star on ink
Tool of the Week

How I Use AI to Compare Jewellery Suppliers (Without the Spreadsheet That Never Gets Finished)

Stop losing half a day to supplier comparison spreadsheets. Learn how to use AI to score casters, stone vendors, and more against your own criteria.

17 June 2026·6 min read
The Bench Journal cover motif: a drawn gold girih star on ink
The Bench and the Model

Synthetic Gemstones and Treatments: What CAD/CAM Jewellers Need to Know

How synthetic gemstones and treatments impact CAD/CAM jewellery design, from setting decisions to ethical disclosure.

26 April 2025·4 min read
The Bench Journal cover motif: a drawn gold girih star on ink
The Bench and the Model

Foundations of Gemstones: Gemmology for CAD/CAM Jewellers

How gemstone properties shape every setting decision in digital jewellery design.

25 April 2025·3 min read
A hammered gold ring set with a ruby
The Bench and the Model

The Timeless Art of Jewellery Design: From Ancient Origins to Modern CAD/CAM Techniques

Tracing jewellery's 100,000-year journey to today's CAD/CAM techniques.

15 April 2025·3 min read
A CAD-modelled gold ring set with a blue sapphire
The Bench and the Model

Learn How Jewellery is Made Using CAD/CAM

What CAD/CAM is, how it has transformed jewellery making, and the careers it opens up.

14 April 2025·5 min read