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Foshan City is just to the west of Panyu,
and there we visited Chow Tai Fook's diamond cutting factory
and also their jewelry manufacturing factory.
And this was quite interesting because Chow Tai Fook
is one of the major retailers of the world.
And they are really vertically integrated.
They're cutting diamonds, they're manufacturing jewelry,
they're supplying their retail stores which are all
throughout China and Hong Kong.
So it was quite interesting to see
how they're manufacturing operated
and what their philosophy was as they supply their stores
and create their jewelry for their market.
Chow Tai Fook has a large, modern, highly efficient
jewelry manufacturing factory.
Final adjustments are being made to the wax pendant
while it is attached to this jadeite carving so they
can get the fit exactly right.
Wax is being injected into this rubber mold by hand.
Care must be taken when removing the wax from the mold
not to stretch or to bend it.
This automated wax injector pushes the rubber mold up
to the injector nozzle, clamps it, vacuums the mold,
and fills it with hot wax.
It then moves the filled mold to the side.
The jeweler lets several filled molds line up,
giving the wax inside time to cool before removing the wax.
The same wax is injected on a production run
to allow the wax injector to be set for a constant air
pressure and temperature.
The waxes are quality controlled inspected
and any final adjustments to the wax are made.
Each a wax has its own sprue, which
is attached to a larger central sprue
to form what's called a tree.
This jeweler is using a hot point
to make a small hole in the central sprue
and attach each individual piece to it.
After the wax tree is burned out of the flask,
a vacuum casting machine is used to fill the empty cavity
with molten gold.
What you're seeing is the gold button
at the bottom of the flask.
Plunging the flask in the water while still hot breaks apart
the investment and allows the gold tree to be removed
and further cleaned.
Each piece will have its sprue and casting skin removed.
A burr is used for hard to reach areas.
Each of these pendants will be heated up on this holding
compound so that it can be secured
and then further manufacturing work can be done on it.
Now a burr is used in conjunction
with a microscope to clean out areas where the compound is
in the way and further prepare the jewelry for manufacturing
processes.
Settings are polished prior to any stones being set in them.
Laser welders allow precise control
of heat for a modern jewelry manufacturing
processes and are found in many high tech jewelry manufacturing
facilities around the world.
You can see both the positive and negative components
of this die.
A sheet of gold is placed between
the positive and negative die, and the die striking machine
stamps out the design.
This computer-controlled milling machine
is cutting out the positive part of the steel
dies while lubricant prevents overheating.
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