How to place your first CAD order — and what happens next

A first order with a new studio is mostly an exercise in not knowing what you are about to be asked. This is the whole of it: what to have in front of you, the two ways to describe a piece, what the price does, and what comes back. It takes about ten minutes, and nothing is made or charged until you have seen a number and agreed to it.

Have these to hand

None of it has to be precise. A CAD artist would rather have a rough answer they can query than a blank they have to guess at.

• Something to look at — a sketch on paper, a photo of a piece you like, a competitor’s product shot, or a CAD file you already own. A photograph is enough.
• Metal and fineness. 18K white, 14K yellow, platinum. If you are undecided, say so; it changes the price but not the model.
• Size. Ring size, chain length, whatever applies. It can be changed later, but it is one less round trip.
• The centre stone, if there is one — shape and rough carat. The model is built around it, so a 1.0 ct oval and a 2.0 ct oval are not the same piece.
• When you need it. Not a wish: the date you have promised somebody.

Two ways to brief it

The assistant takes plain words, reference photos, or a .zip of CAD files, and drafts the spec for you to check. "Oval halo engagement ring, 18K white gold, 1.5ct, sizes 6–7" is a complete brief as far as it is concerned. It reads handwriting on a sketch, and it asks a question back when something is genuinely ambiguous rather than choosing for you.

The full form is the same spec, entered by hand: piece type, metal and fit, centre stone, accent stones, finish, inscription, references and notes. It exists because some people would rather fill in seven sections than describe a piece in a sentence, and because a spec that has to be exact is quicker to type than to dictate.

The price appears before you send

CAD is a fixed price by piece and complexity — a ring is one number, a pendant another, and the band it falls in depends on how much of it is hand-work. The form works that out as you fill it in, so the figure is on screen before you commit to anything.

What happens when you send depends on what that figure did:

• You saw a price and sent it anyway. That is your agreement — approving is the same click as sending, not a second visit to the order page a day later. Work starts.
• The rate card could price it but you had not seen the figure. It comes back as a quote for you to look at, and nothing moves until you accept.
• A person has to price it. Batches over six pieces go this way on purpose, because a batch usually earns a discount a rate card does not know about — as do pieces with stones we have not been asked to source before.

What comes back

A model drawn to real casting tolerances and checked for castability before it reaches you — wall thicknesses, prong seats, whether the thing can actually come out of a mould. You get it as a Rhino file and an STL by default; STEP and OBJ on request. Two rounds of revisions are included, and they are for changing your mind, not for fixing our mistakes, which are ours.

The files are yours to keep and to take anywhere. That is worth checking with anyone you commission CAD from, because it is not universal.

And then

An approved model can go two ways, together or separately. Renders turn it into photoreal images in any metal and stone — the way most pieces get sold before they exist. Production casts, sets and finishes it, and a piece we modelled ourselves prices itself from the weight and the day’s metal, so there is no waiting on a quote for it.

Both show up in the same order list, moving through the same stages, without you having to ask where anything is. That is the part that is hard to demonstrate on a website and obvious within a week of using it.

The one thing worth knowing early

An invoice has to be addressed to a legal entity, so billing details are needed before one can be issued — not before you order, and not before you see a price, but before anything ships. Filling them in on the day you sign up saves a conversation later at exactly the moment nobody wants one.