Traditional Goldsmith Modernized by SRP Technology

Gothenburg, Sweden – Near Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city, a traditional Swedish wooden house hosts a high-tech goldsmith company that has made metal milling with the Roland MDX-540A their specialty.

Master goldsmith Thomas Johansson

Guldsmedshuset, or The House of Goldsmiths, is a family business founded by Thomas Johansson in 1973. Thomas and his father, Stig Johansson, are both skilled goldsmiths and they, together with goldsmith Peter Nordholm, make up the staff at Guldsmedshuset.

The shop is a wonderful mixture of new and old. There, modern jewelry is encapsulated in traditional materials. The solid ash display cases complement the delicate yet powerful jewelry on display. Virtually all of the jewelry is handmade, and you sense that this is a place of original design, where you will not find inexpensively made, mass produced jewelry.

Although it is primarily Thomas Johansson and Peter Nordholm who use the Roland MDX-540A, Stig Johansson is very passionate about utilizing its capabilities in the business.

“The goldsmith business has to evolve. As a craft, we have not had any genuine evolution for 150 years,” Stig explains. “We were invited to a seminar where we saw a demonstration of the MDX-540 and ArtCAM Jewelsmith software and right away we knew that the revolution was here. We saw with our own eyes all the possibilities it would provide, and that was why we chose to invest in the Roland MDX-540 with ArtCAM Jewelsmith.”

They bought their MDX-540A in April 2007, expecting to use it 80% of the time for wax milling and 20% for metal milling (gold, silver, brass, etc). Just one year later, the numbers are completely reversed. To their amazement they have found that they actually mill 20% in wax and 80% in metals. The results are beyond their wildest imagination, and the MDX-540A has proven to be an even better investment than expected.

Many goldsmiths avoid modern CAD/CAM tools fearing that it will diminish everything they have spent their life learning. But milling precious materials like gold still takes more than just above-average computer skills. Thomas Johansson explains: “We’re not afraid that this makes us obsolete or reduces our skills in any way.

With the Roland MDX-540A, Thomas and Peter prefer direct milling in precious metals. Here they mill a solid gold bar.

You still need to have a goldsmith’s understanding of the materials to use it. Of course the machine mills the jewelry, but we designed it, we apply the all-important finish, and we know which parts of the jewelry are weak and which parts are strong. These are crafts that you learn by hand, and no use of computers can substitute for that.”

Far from rendering goldsmiths obsolete, applying IT solutions in the design of jewelry has opened new possibilities for Guldsmedshuset. When a piece of jewelry is designed using computer software, the goldsmiths can create a .pdf file and mail it to the customer. The new versions of Adobe Reader can display 3D images from all angles. This way, the customer can see the new piece before buying it. If the computerized image does not satisfy their customer’s need to see the piece, the customer can come to the shop and see a model milled in wax.

The MDX-540A has rightfully earned its position as the cornerstone of the modern goldsmith workshop. As Thomas and Peter gain experience with the software and the machine, we will surely see an impressive flow of breathtaking, creative jewelry from Gothenburg.

For many years, avid sports fan Stig Johansson has followed the local ice hockey team, the Frölunda Indians. The Indians play in the most competitive Swedish league, Elitserien. They last won the national title in 2005 and the team is considered one of Sweden’s strongest. The club logo depicts a Native American in a feathered headdress. As a souvenir, the club made standard pins featuring a colored plastic logo.

The logo pins are frequently worn by fans in the stands, but Stig Johansson wanted to create a pin that would be appropriate to wear with a suit or in the sponsors’ lounge. He and Peter Nordholm created a more elegant silver pin using the MDX-540. They scanned the image of the pin and imported it into ArtCAM. Using the software, Peter then easily turned the twodimensional scan to a three-dimensional relief, ready for milling in the MDX-540, creating a newer, more stylish pin.