Hey Jewelry Lovers,
I posted a picture of my victorian spider pin on facebook the other day. It's a failed prototype, but a few folks wanted to buy it. I want to make it perfect first. Here are some of the changes I am reworking.
Gem cups: In the photo above you can see the smaller round amethyst overflowing its cup a bit. I modeled the pin around the gemstone sizes, and modeled the size exactly. But metal shrinks a bit during the casting process and the cups did not fit the stones cleanly. So I'm sizing them up a bit to accommodate this shrinking.
Heft: While grinding out the gems cups the piece warped a bit. It was salvageable but I made the metal a bit thicker, wider, and longer on structural parts, because I would prefer it not.
Pin Rest: Sometimes having a piece in hand and manipulating the parts leads you to notice imperfections. In this case the pin did not stay as secure as I would like, so I tightened up the pin rest a bit so it clips in place around pin.
Pin: Added a backstop to prevent it from moving too close to spider.
The awesome thing about the manner in which we are manufacturing is the turnaround time. I'll have a reworked product in hand in about two weeks. And as a bonus for waiting, I'll be launching it with choose your own gemstone options: citrine, peridot, iolite and garnets.