Thank you, Jan.

Without a doubt, most artists and craftsmen can get by just fine without CAD. In fact, it could be argued that you might miss out on a lot of inspiration you might find in doing thing in more traditional ways. While you still may have "happy accidents," what you see in your scrap box isn't going to be as plentiful. Much is the same, though... only different.

Thank you, Jamie.

I wouldn't worry too much about being in the "Iron Age." It can be more of a blessing than not. I'm often envious of people who produce beautiful things with relatively few tools and techniques. More important than your array of tools is your skill with them. 

Dick,

Did you flush mouth the stones or did you send it out. I would very much like to see the process images. Good job!

Fred Zweig
Metalsmith

Thanks Fred. I do pretty much all my own setting. I've got a shot of a stone being set and I'll supply a little how-to description. 

I am working on the post at the moment.

Thanks Frank. That's about the way I see them.

When I started doing a "stock" link piece with a random stone layout I would do each one individually. Some would look real nice and others might not "ring" quite as well, but they would all take me more time to layout than you would think they should. It took a while, but I eventually came up with a pattern and stuck with it. This was a remake of an early piece, and all the stones were about the same size. The owner liked the layout she had so it was just duplicated. 

Thanks, Teun.

I send this work out. The company I used for this piece was RJM Rapid Prototyping. http://www.rjmrp.com/main/ Depending upon the job, they build pieces with the Viper SLA, envisionTEC Perfactory, or CNC milling.