Making A Six-Figure Diamond NECKLACE

This necklace is worth over six figures. On Thursday it has to leave for Madrid, so we haven't got long, and between now and then four craftsmen have just two days to finish it. We're pushing for time here, aren't we? Ah, here's the first problem. How's it hitting us then? I think the customer's going to love it. It looks amazing, I'm actually really pleased with this job. So we've got this job in, which is quite interesting. It's a little bit different to what we're used to. The customer came up with a few ideas of what they wanted. The book, The Art of War, was the inspiration for the piece, and obviously then we've had to take their ideas and make it into a piece of jewellery. We've gone backwards and forwards now for a few days trying to get this all done. We've got engraving going on the back, so it should be a really interesting, lots of detail going on this piece. It's not just like a single stone diamond, which originally thought that's what they wanted when we first started chatting. Now it's evolved into this pendant, which is going to be pushing us a little bit different ways with designing it. It's got a beautiful 5 carat, 57 natural diamond. It's a really, really nice big stone, so quite excited to actually see it. The stone's not here yet, it's still in the way. So I've been making the outside grilled plate, and everyone's got a bit of it. I've got a bit of it, Christian and Ruben's setting some diamonds, Jack's making a bit. I'm working on the back plate, so it's a little bit of metal here, which is eventually going to have this engraved on it. It's like a Chinese design, but don't ask me what it says, I haven't got a clue. That's going to be going on probably the finishing stage, just working on that and then the centre of the stone. But again, we haven't got a stone to work with, so hopefully this one fits. I'm just working on the chain at the minute. I've done just a little drawing just to work out the lengths of the chain in between the box sets, so it's all even, and there's an even amount of number of links in between each one. I'm just buffing a little tape on the wire, and I can put it down through the jaw plate. So it's probably about an inch of 1mm thick, and then put it down until it gets to about 0.5mm, so really thin. It's got to be ready for Thursday morning, so we haven't got long yet again. But this one is a little bit more, it's been playing for a long time, so everything's falling into place. So we've got no big stresses, it's just the fact that we need to get our heads down, get it made, and then get it ready for Thursday. It's my job now to work out how we're going to attach the top part to the bottom part. Also we've got to incorporate a loop somewhere so the chain can go through it. So at the minute I'm just trying to think of ideas, what can look nice, hand work. And mate, we've got all this ready now. That's it, this one we're going to do some laser engraving on, so don't leave that, and yeah, just like nice boxes around them, thread and grain, super tight with the stones, yeah, keep it really nice. Sweet mate, sounds good. Let's do it. So the only problem with doing what I'm doing now is, depth of the stone, if I make this not high enough, the stone could touch this bottom plate. So I need to make sure there's enough room there for it to clear it, which is a bit of a guesstimate. So I need to work it out in my head. We're pushing for time here aren't we? I'm just doing the cut throughs at the minute, so I'm just getting all the little seats ready for the stones to be set. I've drilled out all the holes for this, and I've cut a thread, and I'm just cutting all the little bright cut facets that we do. The diamond has just arrived, it's a 5 carat 47, so let's take a quick look. It's a good size as well, it's natural, I think, yeah, I think the customers are going to love it. I am just working out the design that's going on the back of this pendant. It's a very, very detailed design, very, very hard to actually get it all in this small space. It's literally got a black pen on the back of that, and now I'm going to run a cleaning cycle on it, which is where the engraving is going to go, it's going to take the black off, so we should see if it's, one, clear enough to read, and two, it's straight on there. So Reuben's just setting the smaller stones now, round to round, and then once it's all together, I'm going to set the centre stone. Yeah, so it's been collected in the morning, then I'm going to jump on a plane to Madrid. In Madrid, pick the necklace back up, and then deliver it to the customer. It's pretty much of a well-earned trip, got to get it all done before we've got to leave. Right, mate, that's all set. Lovely, mate. Here's the first problem. How's it in this time? We just put the wire on, so it attaches to the chain, but obviously Jack didn't have this part, because I was making it, I was doing the ceramic, using the ceramic machine, curing, so we put the wires in, and you need grinding out of the wires, and then that then sits in there. Got about two hours left before we've got to leave, so I need to get this centre stone in, get it polished up. So what we're going to do next, we're going to take it to the setting bench, stick it all up so nothing bends, and get this centre stone in. Got about one hour left now. So right, just got changed for the plane now, all ready to go, but all I need to do is stick the chain on this, and then we're off. So we're just attaching the chain where it's got two loops. It looks amazing, I'm actually really pleased with this job. It's come out really nice. It's all 18 carat gold, we've got ceramic, we've got beautiful natural diamonds, so yeah, and it's quite different to make, so it's been interesting to do, it's been a big team effort in the workshop, but yeah, I think what's actually come out is really impressive, I think they're really going to love it. It's exactly what they wanted. Being picked up right now, going to Madrid, I'm then obviously going to the airport to Madrid, then we're going to meet back up with the pendant in Madrid, and then give it to the customer.