Most sterling silver jewelry is made by lost-wax casting: a CAD model becomes a wax, the wax becomes a mold, and silver is poured in. Hand fabrication suits one-offs and very small runs, and CNC or stamping suits flat, geometric or very high-volume pieces. Casting has a one-time mold cost and then a low cost per piece, which is why your first order costs more per piece than your reorder. This guide compares the three methods and shows which one your design needs.
Part of our Jewelry Manufacturer Guide
A buyer asks why 100 pieces cost $12 each and 1,000 pieces cost $6. The answer is not volume discount in the ordinary sense. It is that most of the cost in the first order was a mold, and the second order did not need one. Understanding how silver jewelry is actually made is what lets you predict a quote before you receive it.
Three production methods dominate sterling silver manufacturing, and each has a distinct cost curve, minimum viable volume, and design ceiling. This guide covers what each one does, what it costs, and how to tell which your design needs. Deechy Jewelry Manufacturing & Design makes custom designs from a CAD model and a sample, so these are the trade-offs we talk through with buyers before tooling.
Lost-Wax Casting: How Most Silver Jewelry Is Made
The overwhelming majority of silver jewelry you have ever handled was cast. The process has been essentially unchanged for thousands of years; only the front end has been modernised.
A design is modelled in CAD, then 3D printed in castable resin or cut in wax. That master is used to make a rubber or silicone mold, from which wax copies are injected — one per piece. The waxes are assembled onto a central sprue in a formation called a tree, which is encased in investment plaster. The mold is heated so the wax burns out, leaving a hollow cavity, and molten sterling is poured or vacuum-drawn into it. The plaster is broken away, pieces are cut from the tree, and then every piece is filed, tumbled, and polished by hand.
The economics follow directly from that sequence. The mold is a one-time cost, typically in the range of tens to low hundreds of dollars depending on complexity, and it is amortised across every unit ever produced from it. Once the mold exists, the marginal cost of the next hundred pieces is silver plus labour. This is why a repeat order is dramatically cheaper than a first order, and why manufacturers push back on constant design changes — each change means a new master and a new mold.
The defect to know about is porosity. Gas trapped in the metal as it solidifies leaves microscopic voids. Light porosity polishes out. Deep porosity appears as pitting after finishing, or worse, appears only after plating when the surface reveals what was underneath. Porosity is controlled by sprue design, pour temperature, and casting under vacuum — which is a real capability difference between a properly equipped factory and a workshop.
Hand Fabrication: Built Rather Than Poured
Fabrication starts from sheet and wire rather than a mold. Metal is sawn, bent, formed, and soldered into shape, then finished by hand. There is no mold cost, which makes it the only sensible method for a one-off or a run of five.
Its unit cost, however, does not fall with volume in any meaningful way, because every piece consumes roughly the same skilled labour as the last. A fabricated design that costs $40 in labour at quantity one costs close to $40 in labour at quantity five hundred. Fabrication also produces visible piece-to-piece variation — which is a selling point for a handmade artisan brand and a defect for a brand promising consistency.
Certain forms are genuinely better fabricated: hollow constructions, large hoops, sheet-based geometric work, and anything where a cast version would be unacceptably heavy in silver.
CNC, Stamping, and Die Striking
Machine-based methods split into two useful categories.
Die striking and stamping press metal into shape under enormous pressure using hardened steel dies. The die is expensive — typically several times a casting mold — but the per-piece cost at volume is the lowest of any method, cycle times are measured in seconds, and consistency is near-perfect. Struck metal is also denser and stronger than cast metal, with no porosity at all. This is how high-volume flat components, tags, discs, and simple bands are made when the volume justifies it.
CNC milling cuts the piece directly from solid stock. It delivers tolerances casting cannot match, which makes it the right method for precision-critical parts, and it produces no porosity. It is slow per piece and generates significant material waste, though silver scrap is recovered and recycled. In practice CNC appears more often in producing masters and dies than in producing finished jewelry.
Choosing by Volume
| Casting | Fabrication | Die striking | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup cost | Moderate (mold) | None | High (steel die) |
| Unit cost at volume | Low | High, does not fall | Lowest |
| Viable from | ~20–50 pieces | 1 piece | Thousands |
| Piece consistency | Good | Variable | Excellent |
| Detail and texture | Excellent | Depends on maker | Good, limited depth |
| Undercuts, hollow forms | Limited | Excellent | No |
| Porosity risk | Yes | No | No |
| Lead time on first run | 2–4 weeks | Days to weeks | 4–8 weeks |
The practical rule for most brands: under about 20 pieces, fabricate. From roughly 20 pieces to tens of thousands, cast. Above that, and only for simple forms, ask about striking.
Almost Everything Is a Hybrid
The categories above describe how the body of a piece is formed. Almost no finished product comes from one method alone.
A typical cast ring is CAD-designed, resin-printed, molded, cast, then hand-filed, hand-sanded, tumbled, hand-polished, stone-set by hand, and plated. The casting is perhaps a third of the labour. Everything after it is hand work, and it is where the visible quality difference between two factories quoting the same price actually lives.
This matters when you compare quotes. Two suppliers casting from identical molds can deliver noticeably different products, because one spent twelve minutes of finishing per piece and the other spent four. Finishing time is the least visible and most consequential variable in a silver jewelry quote.
What to Ask Before Committing to a Design
Ask whether the design can be cast, or whether its geometry forces fabrication — deep undercuts, very thin sections, and fully hollow forms all cause problems in casting and will either be rejected or quietly redesigned.
Ask what the mold costs, whether you own it, and whether it can be transferred. A mold you paid for but cannot move is a soft form of supplier lock-in.
Ask how many pieces the mold is good for. Rubber molds degrade, and detail softens over successive runs. A supplier who tracks mold life and recuts before quality drops is running a real process.
And ask whether casting is done under vacuum. It is a one-word answer that tells you a great deal about porosity control.
Plain cast pieces such as this wave ring show the clean surfaces casting does well; compare across rings and pendants. The glossary explains lost-wax casting and CAD, and our guide to ordering custom silver jewelry covers the steps from brief to bulk.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is most sterling silver jewelry manufactured?
By lost-wax casting. A CAD model is 3D printed or carved in wax, a mold is made from it, wax copies are injected and assembled on a tree, the wax is burned out of an investment plaster mold, and molten sterling silver fills the cavity. Pieces are then cut, filed, tumbled and polished by hand.
Why is my first silver jewelry order so much more expensive per piece?
The first order carries the mold cost, which is a one-time expense amortised across every unit produced from it. Repeat orders from an existing mold pay only for silver and labour, which is why the second run is substantially cheaper per piece.
What is porosity in cast silver jewelry?
Microscopic voids left when gas is trapped in the metal as it solidifies. Light porosity polishes out; deep porosity shows as pitting after finishing or after plating. It is controlled through sprue design, pour temperature, and vacuum casting.
At what quantity does casting become cheaper than handmade?
Generally around 20 to 50 pieces. Below that, the mold cost outweighs the labour saving. Above it, casting's marginal cost per piece falls well below hand fabrication, which does not become cheaper with volume.
How long does a new design take at Deechy?
CAD takes 3–5 business days and a sample 5–10 business days, so about 10–20 days in total. Bulk production usually takes 7–15 days, or about 25 days above 500 pieces. Custom designs start from 20–30 pieces per style with a one-time $30 tooling fee.
Part of our Jewelry Manufacturer Guide
