Gold bars to glowing jewellery

SHARJAH — Ever wondered how your fine jewellery gets made? we will skip with the mining part and go straight to the process of turning gold bars into your shining bling.

Khaleej times recently visited the production site of malabar gold & diamonds in sharjah’s industrial area. mehul ashwin soni, who has been working for the company for four years as a diamond jewellery supervisor, explained the step-bystep process to us.

Showing us a 22-karat gold bar weighing 1kg, soni explained the first step involves a highly professional designer team releasing a selection of manual designs, handed to them by the market analysing and merchandising team.

Then, the selected concept is handed to the 3d designers for a mock-up layout. the 3d designs are carefully checked in all the prospective views, sizes and diameter. the machine takes at least a 6-7 hour cycle for printing the design, which comes out in the form of a wax mould, for making the jewellery piece.

The mould is made by getting the impression from the wax and the wax is also injected into the mould to get multiple shapes.

Next comes the preparation for casting. the gold is melted inside a furnace at a temperature of approximately 1,100 degrees centigrade. it’s then mixed with an alloy to change its purity from 24 to 22 karat. the casting moulds are then cleaned inside a drum polishing machine, after which the cleaned pieces are given to the filling department for filling, assembling, soldering and sizing.

Once the handcrafted worker finishes the soldering, the rough areas of the piece need to be cleaned, followed by the assembling of multiple pieces. afterwards, they are forwarded to the jewellery section for another process called machine-cutting.

The machine-cutting worker then gives the beautiful cuts with diamond tools, horizontal and vertical-operated tools before the jewellery piece is sent for polishing.

The polisher uses a buffing machine to render the lustre of the jewellery and then comes the final stage — plating.

Soni adds: “to get the beautiful 22-karat gold colour, some white rhodium (a silvery-white and hard metal belonging to platinum group of elements) is also added for a better look.”

THE FIRE THAT FASHIONS: Staff at the Malabar Gold & Diamonds production site in Sharjah in the process of soldering and filling gold bangles before they are further embellished in different patterns.

MOLTEN MAGIC: Gold bars melted into liquid gold is poured into different bar-shaped moulds, to be further shaped into jewellery.

SLICING THE PATTERNS: Pre-cast gold jewellery components are being split apart, to be later assembled into different necklaces.

BLING RING: A craftsman carefully works on gold rings that require stone setting before they are showroom-worthy.

BEDAZZLING BULLION: The original gold bars to be turned into molten metal as the first step in the jewellery-making process.

DIGITAL DESIGNS: A 3D designer creates a layout of a jewellery item, carefully checked in all possible views, sizes and angles.

CUTTING IT FINE: Bangles are carefully cut on a machine to ensure symmetry.

GLITTERING EYE: More bangles being soldered by a trained, skilled craftsman.

SORT OF SHINE: The final grading, sorting before jewellery is sent to the showroom.