wax carved silver and diamond shamrock lapel pin

Making A Shamrock Lapel Pin

June 19, 2025

The Brief

A customer came to me wanting a shamrock lapel pin made for her son as a gift for graduating from an Irish university.

customers own diamond and white gold ring

We had previously worked on a piece together where we unset diamonds from an unworn ring and she had a few left to use in this design.

She wanted the pin to be made in silver, a diamond set on each leaf and the tapered diamonds incorporated into the design. I decided the best way to create the shamrock would be to carve in hard wax. Using wax is also a fantastic way to create a design in a relatively cheap material to show the customer prior to casting in precious metals.

Wax Carving

For this I used Ferris green wax as it has harder properties and is best for more intricate designs. I started by cutting a smaller section of the tube off and filing the end flat. I printed a template of the shamrock and using a pin placed it on top then pushed pins around the template to transfer the design onto the wax. I roughly pierced out the design to get the rough shape.

carving a shamrock in wax

Using a variety of wax carving tools I scooped out the insides of the leaves to create more details.

Once the shamrock shape was complete holes were drilled into the wax to place the diamonds.

wax carved shamrock with diamonds

As you get an exact copy once cast into metal you want to ensure the wax is as clean as possible to avoid more work. I used various grades of emery paper to remove file marks and scratches, steel wire and finally tights (yes tights!) to achieve a really smooth finish.

Lost Wax Casting

I sent the wax to Jewel Cast where they transformed it into silver using the ancient lost wax casting technique.

Once received back the sprue (the part of metal that allowed the silver to flow into the mould) needed to be removed and the pin was soldered onto the back.

The Finished Piece

The shamrock was cleaned up, filed and polished and it was sent to the London Assay Office to be hallmarked. Finally, the 4 round and one tapered baguette diamonds were set and the whole piece was given a final polish.