Easter project (more flush setting)

[Faith]

Hi all,

With five whole days off for easter i decided to learn flush setting. Having never done it before I devised a project that would involve a lot of flush setting to give myself practice, and (in case the first attempts were irretrievable) did two practice settings first in some scrap sheet before starting on these:



The large stones are green quartz checkerboard cabs (8mm), and each "halo" is comprised twelve 1.5mm zircons.

I have two main criticisms of my own, firstly I thought i could do the halo stone placement by eye - turns out not so much. The kindest thing you could say is it looks a bit rustic - and rustic wasn't what i was shooting for, i should have employed maths or a template or something?

Secondly i'm not that happy with the finish. The backs were fine before i soldered the wires, at which point the back face developed some tiny pits (from the heat I guess), and with the wires on, i no longer had a flat surface to emery, so did the best i could with radial disks. The fronts were fine until i slipped on a couple of the flush settings. I got the scratches out with tiny everflex flame tips, but overall neither side has the perfect flat mirror finish i was after, and i'm not sure what to do at this stage - surely compound would not be safe over the stones...

All in all though i'm fairly pleased with them for a project, and will wear them, they remind me of those little metal cotton reels for sewing machines!

Any feedback or tips for improvement would be gratefully received

Faith