Creation of a coffee bean supply chain

THE coffee bean chains they are very fashionable lately. These chains do not have a particular meaning and the origin of their name comes from the shape of the links which obviously recalls the shape of a coffee bean.

These chains can be used both for necklaces and as men’s coffee bean bracelets depending on the case, the manufacturing method is identical regardless of the type of jewellery.

In this case, we will show you step by step the production of different types of coffee bean mesh jewelry in our jewelry workshop, starting with the manual making of such a bracelet.

Obviously this same bracelet can be made in the same way in gold or with larger coffee beans. This type of mesh lends itself well to the creation of men’s bracelets and necklaces by playing on the size of the mesh.

Coffee bean bracelet custom made by your custom jewelry designer

Here you will discover our collection of gold link chains made in our workshop while below is a gold coffee bean pendant from our pendant collection.

Index

1. Make an ankle bracelet
2. Production of a set of cast iron coffee bean chains

Ankle production (manual)

This type of processing involves the manual creation of each link of the chain directly from the metal. This is the most traditional technique, it does not require machines and is also the longest and in some ways the most expensive.

Create connections

Our work begins with the creation of each coffee bean-shaped shirt.

We then cut out a rectangle of the right size from a silver plate, here 9 x 7 millimetres.

Each link is then shaped by first digging the central groove to create the two perforations.

We can then create the oval outline of the grain to start assembling the chain.

View of coffee beans finalized and aligned before assembly, link by link

Once all the grains are ready, we can move on to making the stitches that will join the grains together.

The links that join the grains together are then welded and polished

Close-up view of the coffee bean line being assembled

The closure

We then have to make the ratchet closure of the bracelet, of classic construction and whose size adapts perfectly to our bracelet. The latter is made by welding rolled silver plates together.

This article details the steps to achieve such a closure.

Silver ratchet clasp in production

The ending

After polishing the bracelet, we obtain the result visible in the following photos:

View of the bracelet with its silver ratchet clasp

This production method offers the advantage of being able to control the size of the mesh and possibly being able to produce large coffee beans for a gold or silver jewel that is not usually found on the market.

The downside to this method is that it is time consuming, which is why most coffee bean chains, both silver and gold, are produced by machines that greatly reduce the time it takes to make the links.

This manual method is therefore only interesting for custom-made coffee bean chains that are small and cannot be found in shops.

To get a quote for such a project, contact us via our online quote form here.

Production of a cast iron coffee bean chain

If the width of the previous bracelet was 7 millimeters, we will now describe the making of a 12 millimeter wide coffee bean chain.

When it comes to making a 55cm long bracelet and necklace, we adopted a production method that uses the lost wax casting process to keep the cost of the project reasonable.

Lost wax casting

After creating a 3D digital model that allowed us to evaluate the weight of the silver needed for the project, we carried out 3D printing of the links of our chain.

A total of 31 stitches were needed to make the coffee bean set.

These are mounted on a wax tree to create a refractory plaster mold then the molten liquid silver is poured into the mold to obtain our silver pieces, visible here.

The meshes obtained by raw investment casting leaving the foundry

Chain assembly

The links are then released from the casting shaft with pliers and then deburred and filed.

They are then assembled together and then the two chains are polished to give this final result.

Bracelet with 12mm wide coffee bean links

Here are some examples of knitted bracelets and necklaces made in our laboratory with the same artisan method.

To go further: