Between engraving and G-code: An AI-assisted jewelry workflow is growing in Bavaria

In Rieden near Amberg, a local craft tradition does not end with the retirement of an 87-year-old pewter engraver. The jewelry designer Andrea Patzner is transferring the know-how into a digital process of AI-assisted 3D design, Blender post-processing, and desktop printers. The goal is small-batch production with reproducible quality without losing the designer’s signature.

“Creating with AI is still creating,” she says. “You need an eye for shape and a sense of what works. The technology only speeds up how you explore ideas.”

Technically, the workflow begins with Sloyd, a platform that generates parametric 3D models from text inputs. Instead of adopting finished shapes, Patzner iterates with style references and constraints until proportions and ornamentation fit. Her son transfers the raw geometries into Blender, closes non-manifold edges, defines wall thicknesses, and prepares the data as STL for printing. Depending on the intended use, FDM or resin systems are employed; the choice is guided by detail resolution, surface roughness, and part weight. Printed parts serve either as end products with sanding and polishing finishes or as master patterns for moldmaking and zinc casting, with shrinkage and gating already accounted for in CAD.

The combination of AI design and additive manufacturing enables series of pins and pendants—such as Oktoberfest motifs like trumpets or horns—as well as small pewter icons for Christmas letters. In cooperation with the “Verrückten Lötwerkstatt” (Crazy Soldering Workshop), printed components are also used as soldering jigs and bending templates, which increases repeatability and reduces setup times.

“Many small crafts are disappearing,” Andrea says. “AI and 3D printing won’t bring back the old workshops, but they help us carry on what mattered about them.”

For AM practice, the example shows how missing engraving know-how can be compensated for by a data-driven CAD-to-print-to-cast process. The limits still lie in finishing and material properties, but the path to stable small batches with an artisanal character is becoming shorter and more predictable.