Designing Halos with Melee Gems

In the past year, my business has increasingly developed toward custom projects and quotes.  This brings with it a lot of design challenges, and in order to simplify matters a bit on my end, let me share with you some useful information about gemstone melees and how to think about designs involving them.  A melee is considered any gem that is 3mm and smaller. 

First, note that not all gems come in all sizes.  For anything under 1mm, there are really just diamonds available.  Most colored stone melees come in 2mm and up, sometimes 1.5mm and up, and not everything comes in melee.

To calculate the weights of diamond melee, you might use a chart like this one:

Colored gems are often a little bit deeper and a little bit denser in their structure, so they weigh more, too.  The most easily available colored stone melee are sapphires and rubies, but as you know from my shop I also have many others: aquamarine, zircon, mandarin garnet, color change garnet, spinel, tsavorite, mint garnet, peridot, tanzanite, chrysoberyl, among others.  I collect melees because I use them a lot in designs, but for the most part, they are not readily available on the gemstone market.  I don't have all of these in all sizes so you'll have to ask.  Some are hard to replace (i.e. chrysoberyl) and lucky buys, others (sapphires, ruby, tanzanite) I can get almost all the time.

Setting:  the most common setting styles for melees is pinpoint and pave (especially the smaller sizes).

1. Pinpoint setting: this is easier and faster for a setter, hence cheaper - tiny prongs are directly entered into the CAD file.  But making a CAD model with ooodles of tiny prongs is time consuming and expensive.  So it's a wash more or less.

Sapphire Ring with Pinpoint Setting

2. Pave setting: this involves drilling individual holes in the metal and shoving tiny beads over the gems.  The risk here is more breakage, and it costs more time (and money).  The CAD model usually involves a flat surface only.  Sometimes we also put the holes into the model (good for bigger melee, like 2mm). This saves a little on metal weights.  There are two basic pave styles:

a) Bright Cut: This involves a straight line of metal on each side of the gem.  This line has a standard thickness of 1mm.  So if you want bright cut pave on your ring shank, you calculate the width of the melee plus 1mm on each side.  So the smallest is 3mm for a shank.  The bright cut can be millgrained, which is very common these days.  Millgrain often costs a bit extra.  

b) Cut down: this involves no rim, the sides of a ring shank (or halo) are cut down into little scoops with a resulting look almost like prongs.  Cut down pave will look like "all diamond" from the top, so a 3mm ring shank will need 3mm gems, and from the top you will basically just see gemstone and a little bit of prong.  Cut down pave can be expensive because you need bigger stones for a good look, but you can also do a very fine shank with 1mm gems that looks like all diamond.  There are different forms of cut down styles, the one pictured here is a simple scoop, but there are others, like fish tail, or Tiffany style.  You can google them on the web.

Paraiba Tourmeline Ring with Diamond Pave and Millgrain

Closeup of Cut Down Pave with Millgrain

Mint Garnet Ring with Cut Down Pave

Close Up of Cut Down Pave

Note that jewelry design is three dimensional, so you also need to consider the depth of a stone.  On average, a gem is 2/3 as deep as it is wide.  So a 1mm gem is .66 deep.  That's the depth you need for the shank in that case.  Colored stones are deeper.  As a result, you may need almost 3mm depth for a 3mm colored gem, and that makes for a very thick ring or pendant.  In a pendant with a larger center this is less noticeable but a ring shank that is too thick may look weird.

Now let's talk about halo styles more specifically.  A halo is a ring of melee (usually diamonds) around a larger center stone.  Halos add a lot of sparkle, an extra color, and generally enhance the look of a gem.  Standard halos are about 1mm or smaller in size because of the diamond cost.  But you can also go larger for a different look.  The trick is knowing how many gems of what size can fit around a center stone.  Here are some layouts we did for you to see how many options there are for just rounds and ovals (and only a few diamond sizes):

Round Melee Layout

Here's the downloadable layout sheet for you.  The sheet will print out to scale so you can lay gems on it upside down to see which layout they fit.  Printable Round Melee Layout Sheet

Oval Melee Layout

Here's another downloadable layout sheet that will print to scale: Printable Oval Melee Sheet

The next thing you should do is calculate the cost of your halo.  You do this by adding up the total carat weight of the diamonds you use, once you know the gem size you want.  Then you need to know the per carat price of the gems you are using, which is why I've added a rough guide below.  Most colored stones are not very expensive and much of the price is the cutting cost.  Diamonds are another story.  This is a table with two prices, slightly lower end and more fine quality goods.  For up to 2.5mm or just above, prices are usually the same per carat.  3mm involves a price jump.  I have calculated this at my standard markup, so other sellers may have different prices.

F/G Color VS Quality, Swiss Cut	G-H Color, SI Quality, Standard Cut
Below 3mm: $1800/ct Retail	Below 3mm: $1400/ct
3mm: $3600/ct	3mm: $2500/ct

Is there more you'd like to know?  Do you have suggestions for blog entries that help your design efforts?  Please let me know here in the comment box, via FB or Etsy.  I'd love to hear your suggestions.

My thanks to Brandy Belenky, my CAD designer, for helping me with this entry and doing the layouts.

Some Thoughts on the Challenge of Making Custom Quotes

Now that I have so many gemstones for sale, I get considerably more requests for custom quotes than I did in the past.  And I face new challenges.  I have been thinking that if I share some of these, perhaps I can get some suggestions from you as I develop price lists and a custom form for my new webpage.

               Making a quote minimally involves calculations on the following three factors:

1. Gemstones:  this math is easy if you have picked out your stone, but if I have to multiply out, say, sidestones for a pendant or ring, or diamonds for a halo, then that involves more.  I usually just “ballpark” smaller colored stones (1-2mm sizes) but I have to calculate out diamonds exactly.  Each size and each grade will change the calculation.  So a half pointer G/H VS is different from a 1 pointer G/H SI.

2. Metal cost:  this can be tricky.  It is easiest if I have an existing ring that I can weigh or that is one of my molds, because I have the weights listed in my mold sheet.  Then I multiply by the current gold price. If I have to make the ring from scratch, I have to consult a catalog that gives me the weights of metal strips in different mm sizes and thicknesses.  The weight is usually in 14 K yellow, so that involves conversions if it is platinum or 18k.  For silver I just ballpark because silver is cheap.  Another factor that influences weight is the finger size.  A size 5 is much lighter than a 9.  I have lists for that also, that is, how many mm metal strip I need for which finger size.  With gold, you need to be exact because just ¼ gram in weight can make a big difference.  I also have to calculate some metal loss, or the cost of the sprue, so I add a little % to each calculation.  Finally, settings can vary drastically in price, and there are no price lists that contain every single setting in every single size (for instance, bezels weigh more than prong settings, but some prong settings are more hefty than others, and each mm size makes the setting heavier).  Plus gold prices change every day so when you shop, you pay a % markup on that day’s spot price.  As you get more experienced, you learn to estimate better, and that helps.  But the rule of thumb in the market is not to underestimate because if you cut it too tight, you can very quickly lose money, especially when your markup is low (mine is very low by industry standard).

Metal Strip Price List for 10K Flat Wire

3. Labor: labor breaks down into several categories.  If it is a casting, then you add casting labor.  That’s only a few dollars, so that’s good.  If you have to make a mold, you add that in.  If there is 3-C printing or CAD work involved, that’s another price depending on the time it takes to make it.  If there is soldering, I have a rough idea of what each type of soldering costs and I add that in. Then there is setting labor.  Setting labor depends on stone size, bezel or prong, millgrain or pave.  And of course the number of stones.  So a ring with 12 sidestones that are 2mm, with a 6 mm center, pave, can be very different from a 3 stone ring that’s prong set.  Finally, you have to add polishing and plating costs (i.e. rhodium). 

Sample Page from Settings Catalog - Look at all those Sizes and there are Pages and Pages of this Stuff

Now this was the simple calculation.  When you get to a complicated CAD design then often you have to make a 2-D or even 3D rough drawing before you can get the pricing exact.  That means the customer has to be very specific about what she wants, or provide me with a budget first, otherwise the back and forth can be endless.  And if I have to send out 3 possible quotes involving three design alterations, I can easily be sitting for an hour just to do the math.

At the very end, I add my wholesale markup, which has to account for the following factors: my own time and labor which involves quotes, photos, seeing the order through, all customer communications, shipping time.  I work approximately 40 hrs a week just running the shop.  Then there is assistant’s overall time helping with the shop, shipping costs, overhead (computer cost, travel to NY, electric, etc), Etsy cost, PayPal or Direct Checkout cost, as well as development costs when I make new designs, putting orders together, accounting costs, and costs for items not sold, items wasted, items broken (not negligible!).  What does that add up to?  Very very minimally, you have to double your cost once you’ve worked out the initial item cost.  But a safer calculation is x1.2-1.5 depending on how much your other costs are.  Everyone in industry – just about any industry – tells you that even for wholesale, if you don’t do at least double, you will go under.  I frequently get chided by people for not being careful with my own costs, and I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty!  My shop does very well but I work hard for that.

Complicated enough for you?  Now you know why custom shops usually charge so much money.  By the time the customer is satisfied and the numbers are correct, you can have spent more time than it takes to actually make the piece.  Well, I’m overstating of course, but it is definitely more involved than what meets the eye.  That’s why so many shops just have basic designs and price lists based on those, as opposed to making everything to order.