A picture is worth a thousand words.

March 24th 2014

This is a photo journal of the designing and making of a 7cm long opal pendant. I started with a photo of one of my designs and some gems that my customer already had.

Ross came to me with some gems that he wanted to make into a pendant for his wife. The main stone was to be a 42 carat white opal. First step for me was to photograph the gems I had to work with. I included a ruler in the photo so that I could use them in the design process to scale.

Ross had seen a pendant design on my website that he liked so I set about looking at what was possible using this start design, his opal and other gems.

I digitally created 3 variations on a design for Ross and he chose the version below.

The pendant needed a chain so using photos of chains that I can supply I edited the design once more to show the pendant with chain options. Ross narrowed it down to the Belcher style of chain. From the photo Ross chose the lighter chain on the left below.

It was at this point knowing, the design to be made and the chain to be used, that I was able to give Ross a quote which he accepted. Next I started creating the top frame of the pendant. For this large pendant I chose to carve it out of wax by hand in one piece and then cast it into 9ct white gold, the precious metal to be used.

With the pendant frame created I took a photo of it from the side so that I could sketch up options for the side profile of the pendant.

Once Ross approved the design for the side I was now ready to make the pendant. To give you an idea of the size of the finished pendant, a little over 7cms, I have inserted a 20c piece scaled to size in the photo below. The pendant was made in 9ct white gold with a matching belcher chain. The blue Sapphire weighs 2.7 carats and the diamonds have a total carat weight of .19 carats.