Pink Heart

She ordered this for herself after a promotion. That detail shaped the whole job. She said, more than once, that she did not want it to look like a gift, which ruled out the bow, the halo, and every sweet little detail we usually reach for with a heart shape. A 1ct heart-cut pink moissanite, 14k rose gold, and a thin open frame holding the stone like an architectural drawing.

Heart cuts are fussy. The lobes are the problem. Those two curves at the top are shallow, and any prong sitting on them either looks heavy or leaves the girdle exposed. I drew four mounts. Three of them read as a ring. The fourth was a flat 1.1mm rail that follows the outline at a constant 0.4mm gap and picks the stone up at the point and at the two shoulders. That gap is what makes the stone look like it floats. It is also unforgiving. If the heart is off by half a degree, the gap shows it.

The first cast came back with the rail 0.15mm narrow at the point. I could have squeezed it in with pliers and called it a press fit. I did not. I cut the rail, adjusted the model, and re-cast. That cost four days off a 3 week schedule, so the finishing happened in one afternoon instead of two.

Prongs are 0.9mm round wire, four of them, filed to a soft dome and polished before setting because you cannot get a wheel into that frame afterwards. Final polish by hand with rouge on a felt bob, then a five minute ultrasonic, then inspection under 10x for fire-scale at the solder joints. Two small pits showed up on the underside of the rail. Repolished, gone.

3 weeks from CAD approval. Fastest job we shipped all year, and I am still not sure I would promise it again.