Mehmet SADIK

Owner / By-M Istanbul Design Office

• Who are By-M Istanbul and Mehmet Sadik? Can we get to know you briefly?

I born in Greece, I grew up in Australia. I am a Turkish guy. I’m a western Thrace Turk, where jewelry comes from my father was a watchmaker. My brother was a jeweler. So I’ve been in the jewelry and watch business since I’m nine years old. So this year is my 46th year in jewelry in goldsmithing diamond setting, 3D designing and printing.

• Could you tell us about behind story of meet with Uniway technology?

I am the first in the world to produce 0.30 thickness cast of jewelry. But after several years of working with wax printers, I came to a point that surfaces I had pieces produced that were not entirely complete surface. but I came to a point that I needed surface jewelry. So the wax machines unfortunately, because we were using very, very thin pieces. 0,30 thickness of wax became too weak, so I had to find a solution and I started to try resin. Unfortunately, most of the machines that we tried, but there were a lot of different problems with these machines, some we had problems with the machines, but mostly we had the problem with the resin. Because shrinkage in the jewelry business is very, very, very important. Because of the things that we do, the pieces that we have to to put together, there shouldn’t be any shrinkage at all, otherwise we don’t have the pieces fitting each other. So we started to look around what we can do, which machine we could use it. And we discovered Uniway which we have the first machine that was, that’s in Turkey. Somehow we got in contact with team. We are first user of this machine in Turkiye.

Since then it’s the 6th year now with the way. Are we happy? Yes, we are happy. Have we changed a lot of things. I believe we have changed a lot of things worldwide. Because a lot of people from all around the world, when they look at the things that we have been done with the printer, they admire it. They’re shocked. So it’s a revolution into the jewelry business.

It’s not only our knowledge, it’s the machine, the tolerances, the resin, no shrinkage. So when you combine everything together, you receive a very, very good result. It’s just as an example, we printed some bracelets several years ago and we kept them aside for 3 years. For me this is very important because mainly in the industry, when we look around, all the reasons that we have mostly,  which I can say 99% , they have shrinkage problem. Three years later, ıt was 1 mm cz bracelet we tried to set the stone aside and set perfectly with no shrinkage, no problem. It’s all so we have a reliable system. Why it’s reliable? Because now mostly again in the market, we have the printers that are unfortunately using the fab. Uniway is a top down 3d printer which gives us a few benefits. Firstly, you don’t have anything between the UV rays and the resin itself. So what happens? Whatever you are directly giving to the resin, it gets directly contact with the printign platform, so there’s nothing in the middle. This is one of the advantage.

The second advantage, because we don’t have the fab. Each layer does not stick to fab. It requires less supports because it is top down hardware. We also have the benefit of the the strength of the liquid resin keeping the model in place. So this also gives us a benefit of using less supports, more thinner pieces and accuracy. That’s it. The resin no shrinkage. Good casting results.

• As a designer who has been using both wax and resin technology for many years, can we learn your experiences and suggestions in both technology?

it’s about doing things wrong because unfortunately people don’t understand the difference between wax and resin. Firstly, you have to have some experience on resing casting because it is a totally different material. They have very different characters so first, you have to learn how to cast resin before comparing with the wax. But in the end we’ve come to a position that which I will show you now several samples we have come to a perfect position that we can print, cast and come to the end, we are competing with mostly mechanical machines for chains and etc. Dye stamping chains and we have a lowered all the production line. I mean the time on the bench, the polishing etc. This is because firstly as I said, reliable, accurate and long lasting machine, mostly in the market of course there are several machines which tried a lot of them.

Them some machines were given to us for for a trial for a few months to tried it. We gave them reports and etc. We refused a lot of machines. Three things are important in jewellery, jewelry, mold productions actually. Firstly the casting,surface but accuracy. For me mainly in the market, people are looking for surface quality. I don’t care about it because after 45 years of experience I know how to use all the machines, the abrasives and etc. So giving the shiny Polish that’s not a big deal. Casting if you do the proper steps you definitely get very good results in casting. So the first important thing according to me is, accuracy. Because as I said before, we have been producing the pieces that we have to use 3 -4- 5, maybe 10 pieces we have put them together.  If you have a shrinking resin, if you don’t have an accurate printer. With not accurate nor shrinking arisen together, it’s unfortunately impossible to put those pieces together.

Because in the pieces that we produce, which we will show you the samples we are we produce chains, we produce bracelets, necklaces, everything which have been produced by mechanical machines which each one cost over $50,000 to $250,000. Additionally you have to buy molds separately molds besides the machine, so when you look at the samples, all the things that we are capable of doing with the printer and we can do it immediately, which we have other benefits also. Now for chain machine you need you have to order the machine receive the machine, establish the place, start production and you cannot just produce one piece or two pieces of five pieces. The issue is we have customers, for example, they have produced several new collections with the pieces that we produce for them. But the issue is one of their customers, they come, they want 18 carats, the other one comes, they want 14 carrots. The other one comes they want 10 carats. They want rose. They want white, they want yellow. So what happens? Unfortunately that company has to those chains in all those colours and carrots in stock. In order to produce the exact demand from the customer.

With this machine which I have to put again aside accuracy, good casting quality, good surface quality. That’s why I’m not actually, I’m not comparing with other machines. We are happy, but with this machine we have come to the point. Yes, we can produce one piece up to 1000 pieces. It’s not problem. We can design any piece. I see the result 3 hours later printed. I sent a casting. The next time I receive it in hand to be able to do this with mechanical machines you need months.

For example, a byzantine chain. It is complete square. Producing this by hand, it is a mess. Producing this as hollow is nearly impossible. It takes too much time and you have to produce each link, link by link. Link it together. Then soldered and etc. But with this type of production we have come to a point that, we cannot never take the benchmark to 0 but 1 or 2%. We print this from the printer we have the supports. It goes directly to the casting division. Casted comes out, we cut the supports and we don’t do anything else. Because we just go without doing anything on the bench, send it to Polish and put the lock on and its finish.