Next gen metal 3D printing anchors T.Gold’s September edition at Vicenza Oro

The VicenzaOro T.Gold’s 2026 edition confirmed 3D printing and additive manufacturing as one of the pillars of the show’s technology program, now built into the VicenzaOro calendar with two editions a year, in January and September. Jetting-based AM technologies like binder jetting and material jetting drew the most attention among exhibitors and speakers alike. As Matteo Pollini, IEG Exhibition Manager, put it, the technology reduces the amount of precious metal a piece requires. It enables customized, on-demand micro-production, bringing the prototype and finished piece closer together.

VoxelMatters has been covering 3D printing-related advancements in jewelry at Vicenza Oro for over a decade, from ultra-advanced and innovative experiments in LPBF to the mass adoption of polymer technologies such as stereolithography and material jetting in 3D-printed castable patterns and lost-wax processes. It’s great to see how the topic of AM for precious metals and jewelry this year ran through the entire show. The first edition of The Vicenza Symposium, held at the Basilica Palladiana and promoted by IEG, Legor Group, and Progold, gave it a dedicated stage, as did JTF, the Jewelry Technology Forum organized by Legor with IEG at the VicenzaOro Smart Hub on September 7, under the theme “Design. Print. Transform.”

XJet’s precious jetting

XJet, the Rehovot, Israel-based company, presented its proprietary NanoParticle Jetting (NPJ) technology for precious metals at its booth. The process deposits precious metal only where a part needs it, with no loose powder, no wax, and no casting involved, delivering the surface quality and geometric complexity premium jewelry brands demand, along with the highest material efficiency of any manufacturing process in the sector.

“Our debut at T.Gold showed the timing is right, for us and for manufacturers looking at what comes after casting”, Guy Zimmermann, XJET CEO, exclusively told VoxelMatters. “The interest came from across the audience, and it was clear that it resonated immediately. Direct, powderless printing of precious metal is a clear break from the mainstream approaches, and the gains are not marginal: efficient material usage and weight control, minimal inventory to hold, and the design freedom and part quality we have proven in other industries, holding up here on complex geometries, hollow and semi-hollow designs, and assemblies. People grasp the implication for their production within a few minutes of conversation.

“What changes over the next few years is the production logic itself,” Zimmermann continued. “When a piece comes off a printer instead of a casting line, complexity stops driving cost, small runs stop carrying a penalty, and what a manufacturer holds in stock becomes files rather than molds, trees and metal. That is a different operational and economic model for this sector. It takes time to absorb, and the manufacturers who absorb it first will set the terms for everyone else. We are glad to be part of this ecosystem and intend to build that model together with the community here in Vicenza.”

Where many companies apply 3D printing technologies originally developed for other industries, such as industrial or dental, to jewelry as an afterthought, XJet has been building its positioning around the jewelry sector. Its recommended system, the Carmel Oro, is marketed directly as the production tool for premium jewelry and watch manufacturers, from boutique designers to established brands. The features follow from that focus: customizable gold and silver alloys formulated in-house, hollow structures that sharply cut gold consumption, full design freedom through pre-assembly printing that allows undercuts and internal lattice structures impossible with casting or conventional AM, and a surface finish smooth enough to minimize manual polishing.

One patented feature sets the system apart: stone-in-place sintering, in which stones are inserted directly into the green part before sintering. Isotropic, minimal shrinkage locks them permanently into position, removing the need for post-set bezel work.

The technical sheet XJet handed out at the booth put layer thickness under 10 μm, tolerance at ±50 μm, the smallest printable feature under 200 μm, and surface finish at 1.6 Ra. Material efficiency runs above 91%, compared to roughly 55% for casting, 20% for CNC machining, and 13% for laser fusion. The workflow moves from file upload to printing, washing, sintering, and finishing, turning a file into finished parts in 48 to 72 hours.

The Carmel Oro measures 175 by 190 by 85 centimeters, with a print area of 350 by 140 millimeters, two or four printhead channels, and the ability to print up to three materials at once. Gold and silver alloys arrive in sealed cartridges rather than as loose powder, jetted drop-on-demand with full material traceability.

Legor’s binder jetting hub

Legor Group is one of two technical-scientific sponsors of The Vicenza Symposium, alongside Progold, and the organizer of JTF. For more than 45 years the company has turned metals into alloys, powders, and galvanic solutions for fine jewelry, fashion accessories, and industrial use, and its R&D department now brings precious alloys, galvanic solutions, and additive manufacturing together in-house.

That work centers on 3D Metal Hub, Legor’s center of excellence for binder jetting additive manufacturing. It was built to offer a flexible, sustainable production process capable of shaping components in steel, silver, bronze, titanium, and platinum, overcoming the limits of traditional manufacturing on complex geometries, waste, prototyping time, and customization. Legor operates as a benefit corporation, a status that carries an explicit ethical and sustainability positioning through the business.

The company’s flagship alloys on show included Modern Electrum, made from precious and non-precious metals sourced from certified recycled material and formulated for hardness and corrosion resistance; Silnova, a 950‰ silver alloy enriched with palladium for greater oxidation resistance; and Andromeda, a range of 950‰ platinum alloys in granule form built for purity and dimensional stability in precision machining. Legor also showed nickel-free, palladium-based white gold alloys, alongside next-generation electroplating with digital controls for uniform thickness and colors that hold over time.

At JTF, Legor’s Mattia Lago and Mattia Trentin presented a direct case history, “Jewellery and Fashion Accessories Production by Binder Jetting AM: From Lab Tests to Full-Scale Production.”

More AM in Vicenza

DWS ran a live demo built around its XCELL 300S, a recent SLA printer built for automated, unsupervised production, with an average 30% speed gain over earlier systems. A quad-laser variant, the XCELL 300Q/QHR, is aimed specifically at jewelry work. On the build platform, full casting trees showed off three materials: turquoise and green in Fusia Digital Wax, a wax-like material with a melting point close to real wax; red in Fusia DC905, for filigree and high-precision parts; and yellow in Fusia 445, for tall pieces along the Z axis, such as chains, or for pre-setting stones. Alongside the printer, DWS showed finished pieces beyond jewelry, cast rings, pendants, metal-mesh bags and vases, plus resin-printed sunglasses frames, positioning the platform across jewelry, fashion accessories, and eyewear.

Banco Villa, part of 8853 S.p.A. (Metalli Preziosi Milano) and a precious-metal semi-finished products supplier since 1950, entered 3D printing with a turnkey resin offering: the ecoGEMINI printer, its casing made from corn fiber, running MSLA LED-LCD technology at an indicative €3,750, alongside a post-processing range including a resin mixer, UV light box, and a centrifugal spinner for removing excess resin from printed parts.

Progold, an alloys and jewelry technology supplier since 1997 with distributors in 16 countries, showed its Additive Manufacturing Division, a service bureau for precious-metal powders and semi-finished products with L-PBF know-how, alongside its PLATINA103 and PLATINA105 950‰ platinum alloys for casting and plastic deformation. Chairman and CEO Damiano Zito, also President of The Vicenza Symposium, said the event’s 21 speakers covered sustainability, AI, additive manufacturing, surface treatments, precious alloys, and traceability.

Sisma, founded in 1961 near Vicenza with around 260 employees across six countries, brought its chain-making machines and laser systems for marking, welding, cutting, engraving, and additive manufacturing. Cielle, founded in 1978, showed CNC and laser jewelry-making equipment across its ALFA, BETA GOLD, TAU TECH, TAU SMART, and RHO lines, complementary to AM rather than AM itself.

Other companies met on the floor included GV Formacad, Neoshapes, Helmut Fischer (XRF coating and precious-metal composition instruments), Zhejiang Flashforge 3D Technology (wax molds for lost-wax casting), and RapidShape, the German high-speed DLP manufacturer serving dental and jewelry casting.

Leading voices on AM

JTF, organized by Legor Group with IEG, VicenzaOro, and T.Gold, ran on September 7 at the VicenzaOro Smart Hub, in Hall 4.1, under the theme “Design. Print. Transform.” The afternoon program built the additive manufacturing and digital manufacturing sessions around three talks. Marco Luigi and Giuseppe Grasso, from Politecnico di Milano, presented “Additive Manufacturing: Digital and Sustainable Manufacturing for the Creative Industry.” Matti Ben Moshe, from Tritone Technologies, introduced the company’s MoldJet technology in “MoldJet Technology: from Slurry to Advanced Jewelry Manufacturing.” Legor’s own Mattia Lago and Mattia Trentin closed the session with their case history on binder jetting.

Tritone Technologies’ MoldJet’s appearance on the JTF program marked the company as a technology reference worth tracking as the precious-metal AM field around VicenzaOro keeps expanding.

Earlier, at the debut edition of the Vicenza Symposium, held at the Basilica Palladiana with 21 international speakers, several sessions focused on 3D printing and additive manufacturing for jewelry. Boonrat Lohwongwatana, CEO and co-founder of Meticuly and a researcher at Chulalongkorn University, discussed how artificial intelligence is reshaping the jewelry industry, from optimizing design, alloys and maintenance to reducing waste and speeding up production through generative models and customization.

Nora Francesca Maria Lecis, Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, presented binder jetting for gold, noting that the technology allows gold and other precious metals to be printed at room temperature without support structures, yielding smoother surfaces, finer detail and better sustainability.

Hossein Ghasemi, Scientific Project Manager at Switzerland Innovation Park Biel/Bienne, spoke about laser beam shaping, explaining how blue lasers and shaped beams help manage heat more precisely, addressing long-standing defects like cracks and porosity, and improving stability in complex geometries.

Teresa Frye, founder of TechForm Advanced Casting Technology in Portland, covered platinum 3D printing with laser powder bed fusion, pointing to finer microstructures, improved mechanical properties and greater geometric freedom compared with traditional casting.

Alessandro Scianca, Technical Designer at Bvlgari Gioielli, described combining SLM 3D printing with CNC machining to overcome the limits of investment casting, enabling complex shapes and high precision while preserving artisanal quality. Joseph Tunick Strauss, Senior Engineer and President of HJE Company, addressed sintering theory in powder metallurgy, framing it as central to techniques like MIM and additive manufacturing for achieving density, strength and precision.

Finally, Edgar Andrade, Tool Room Supervisor at Tiffany & Co, closed the technical program with a talk on binder jetting, presenting it as an alternative to costly, complex traditional casting and outlining a 5M model, covering manpower, machines, materials, method and measurement, for identifying defect causes and improving process quality and reliability.