DICE (with coloured gemstones) => 21 photos

                           

 I used an Onglet graver of #1 to secure each stone with a 'little wire bead' beside the Girdle of every stone. This ensured that no stones would get loose.

 These gemstones were not computer-designed. The round holes for each stone were hand-cut by me.

 For easier handling during the gemstone process. I prefer to keep the dice secured on a shellac stick.

 The Scale of Difficulty is measured by the experience of having many decades of diamond setting. For me, this project is still difficult and fraught with unseen problems.

 What is the answer to cutting a near-perfect circle? The answer is 'a steady hand'!

 Here is my inventory of Bud Burs of all sizes, large Round burs, and extremely large round burs. All of these 72 burs greatly assist me in this 'Circle Cutting' essay.

For the dice that had 5 stones, I prepared the colours ahead of time. The colour shades and slight variety of size were selected before one dice was cut.

  I prepared the Flat graver #40 and #42 by watching how they appeared to me. Not one cut was allowed if there were errors in the preparation of the cutting edge or face.

            The separation of the three circles had to be EXACT.

 I never used any device to measure the spacing. Was this difficult? YES!

 Here was the beginning of a dice; I used it to get the size and final weight for metal casting. I needed to know just how much metal was needed to give to my off-site caster.

 After the cutting of the circle and before stone-setting, I used this hand-held polishing buff to make it look nice and clean.

 This buffing was done to every hole. It was my method of giving my hopeful client a reason to buy these dice.

What are these pieces of metal? They came from the just-cut metal circle.

 Here is my Flat graver #42 cutting into the metal.

 Just another view of the same dice. A steady hand is essential in this metal cutting.

 WOOPS! The spacing got lost somewhere, and this is what happens. But I might salvage this dice by picking larger stones to overcome this error.

 I was so darned happy with the results of this stone being placed in the metal.

 These 5 stones turned out 'almost acceptable', but not good enough. Now you know that 'spacing' can be so critical and very demanding.

 GOOD GRIEF! This whole dice got returned to the refiner for recasting. Goodbye!

The spacing on this dice was what was required.

 Remember, there was no CAD involved in any of these metal cuttings.

Already I can see that this dice will succeed to make any client happy.