How Custom Jewelry Works, Step by Step

The consultation is not a performance. It is a list. What is the piece: pendant, chain, ring, bracelet, earrings. Who wears it. Yellow, white or rose gold, and which karat you think you want. Stones or no stones. A photo, a sketch, or a sentence. If you already own the chain the pendant must fit, the width in millimeters. If it is a ring, the finger size. If it is a bracelet, the wrist length. Missing facts become wrong drawings, so the first step is collecting them, not polishing the sales pitch.

You can do this at the showroom, 7900 NW 27th Ave, Unit 506, Miami FL 33147, or by phone and text at 954-504-5640, or through Instagram @frankydiamonds. The shop has been in Miami since 2010. The family has worked in the trade since 1990. None of that changes the order of the job. The idea still comes first, from you.

Call 954-504-5640 if a finger size or a chain width is easier to say than to type. A spoken measurement still gets written into the design. Bring a finished piece from the catalog if it is almost right. A Flat Miami Cuban Chain at 5 mm is $1,880. A men's signet such as the Cushion Prong Signet Ring is $4,545. Pointing at a real piece is faster than describing "kind of like a Cuban, but nicer." The gap between that piece and what you want is the actual brief.

We answer with a design and a number. The number belongs to that design, not to the vibe of the conversation. It is built from gold weight, diamond carat weight, stone origin and labor. If the drawing shows a 30 mm face and the price assumes a 30 mm face, a later request for 45 mm is a new price. This is the step people try to skip, and it is the step that protects both sides. You are not guessing. We are not casting a surprise.

The design should be specific enough to argue with. Height or diameter. Thickness. Karat and color. Clasp or backing or bail. Finger size or wrist length if those apply. Total carat weight and whether the diamonds are laboratory-grown or natural. Gram weight when gold is the main cost. If a line is missing, ask for it before you treat the number as final. The page that shows what the screen model is for is 3D renders and CAD.

You can reject the design. You can ask for a cheaper version: less height, 10K instead of 14K, stones on the front only, lab-grown instead of natural. Each of those is a revised design with a revised price. Nothing in the lost-wax flask has happened yet. That is the entire advantage of this step. Use it.

Agreement means you accept that design and that exact price. Not a nod at a screenshot cropped so the price is off the frame. The piece is made after that, not before. This is the opposite of a shop that casts first and "works it out" on the invoice. We do not publish a count of days. What we publish is the gate: no agreement, no jewelry.

If you change your mind after you agree, say so immediately, before metal is committed. A change after casting is a different piece of work and a different conversation. The clean version of custom is still the one where the arguments happen on the drawing. Read custom jewelry for the short form of the same rule, and custom versus ready-made if you are still deciding whether you need a drawing at all.

Ready-made is the other legitimate outcome of step 1. If the consultation shows that a $365 Gold Initial Necklace or a $1,035 pair of Baguette Hoops is the piece, stop. Buy it. Custom is not more noble. It is more specific.

Once you agree, the drawing becomes a model the bench can cast. Gold jewelry at this level is usually made by lost-wax casting: a model, a mold, molten gold, then cleanup. The karat you approved is the alloy that goes in. 10K is about 41.7 percent gold, 14K about 58.3 percent, 18K 75 percent. Switching alloy after the pour is not a polish. It is a new cast. That is another reason the karat is locked at approval.

Stones go in after the metal can hold them. Each seat is cut or cast, each stone is set, each prong or bead is finished. A full pave face is hours of that work. A plain signet is mostly metal and a little engraving. The labor line you saw in the price is this step. Setting is also where a sloppy design reveals itself: stones that the drawing packed too tightly, a bail the chain cannot enter, a shank too thin under a heavy face. Those are drawing problems. Catching them in step 2 is the job.

Diamonds set in this shop are disclosed the way the FTC Jewelry Guides require. Laboratory-grown stones are called laboratory-grown. Natural stones are not given a vague label that hides the origin. GIA's teaching is the technical half: same crystal, different growth, separable in a lab even when the counter looks the same. Our lab diamond rings in stock are E color and VS1, which is one spec. Your piece uses the spec written on your design, which might match that and might not.

The last bench step is finish and a check against the design you approved. Polish, clasp operation, earring backs, stone security, the spelling of a name. Then the piece is either picked up at Unit 506 or sent with insured shipping. Insurance on the shipment is the policy on every shipment, not a upgrade you have to remember to request.

After you have the piece, a manufacturing defect has a 7-day window. That window is about a defect in the making. It is not a trial period, and it is not a production schedule. There are no refunds. All sales are final. The wording lives on shipping and returns. Read it before you agree, not after the chain is on your neck.

We do not publish how many days the bench takes. If a deadline is the real constraint, shop the collections and leave with a finished piece. Custom is the path when the spec is the constraint.

Take the price apart even if you only get one quote. Gold grams and karat. Diamond carats, origin, and enough about color and clarity to know you are not comparing VS stones to promotional melee. Labor, especially setting. Extras you actually asked for: engraving, a special clasp, a hollow back. A jeweler who will not separate those lines is asking you to compare a single number that might hide a hollow chain against a solid one, or lab-grown stones against natural.

Catalog anchors keep the lines honest. Small gold pendants at $325 to $400 are mostly labor. A 5 mm Miami Cuban Chain at $4,260 is mostly gold, and a different 5 mm flat Cuban at $1,880 proves that width is not enough to explain price. A 26.6 carat lab diamond bracelet at $9,000 is mostly stones. Your custom piece will lean one of those ways. The design should say which.

For the pendant version of this math, use custom pendant cost. For chains, use custom chain cost. For how long the steps take without a fake calendar, use how long custom jewelry takes.

Decide the spec. Answer the questions about size and metal. Look at the side view, not only the hero angle. Say no when the price is for a different piece than the one in your head. Agreement is yours, which means the mistake of approving the wrong size is also yours. We would rather redraw than cast the wrong finger size, and the time to say so is before you agree.

Do not send eight references that contradict each other and call it one idea. Pick the reference that matters: the link, the face, the stone coverage. Extra photos can illustrate. They cannot all be the spec. One design, one price, one yes.

The motto is "We ain't cuttin no corners." In this process that means the karat is the karat on the page, the stones are the stones on the page, and the piece is not waved through because someone is in a hurry. If you need the hurry more than the spec, buy finished jewelry. Both choices are respectable.