A customer went to a commercial jeweler and asked for a Sterling silver turtle broach with paua inset into the segments of the shell. As usual, the jeweler came to Crystillery to cut and set the paua. The jeweler made a wax model of the turtle and cast a Sterling silver turtle and sent it to me. I had to make 13 segments of paua, cut with colours and patterns to match and cut to fit exactly into the 13 setting sections. Each segment was completely ideosyncratic, meaning there were no regular angles, no straight lines, no consistent arcs. Everything had to be custom fit. What made this even harder is that the bottoms of the segments were not flat, so I had to carve out the back of each piece to be thicker and thinner in places so they would sit flat in the space (or at least look that way from the outside). This was a huge job. Fortunately, it all came together and the customer was very happy.
Here is the original casting and some of the pieces of Paua laid out to show my plan.
And here it is partly done, showing the work in progress.
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