Does Approving the CAD Replace a Physical Sample?
Direct answer
No — they catch different problems. Approving the CAD confirms the design on screen: shape, dimensions, stone placement and the look you want, and it is the cheap place to fix anything. A physical sample confirms what no render can: how the piece carries in real metal, its weight and feel, how light moves across it and how a stone actually sits in its setting. Approve the CAD to protect the design; take a sample to protect the object.
Two checkpoints, two different jobs
The CAD is a design check. On the model you confirm proportions, real dimensions, stone sizes and metal thickness, and you say yes before anything is cast. It is fast and cheap to revise, which is exactly why we make it a hard gate: catching a wrong proportion on screen costs minutes, catching it in metal costs a remake. What the CAD cannot tell you is how the thing behaves in the hand.
The sample is a physical check. Once the design is approved, a wax or resin model is printed and cast in your chosen metal, and you get the real object to hold — to judge scale, weight, comfort against the finger, the finish, and how a stone actually sits in its prongs under light. These are qualities a render only approximates. For a simple, familiar piece you may trust the approved CAD and go straight to production; for a one-off, a heavy stone or an unusual setting, the sample is the check worth having.
So the two are not alternatives — they are sequential. The approved CAD is the target the sample is made to, and the sample is the proof the target feels right in metal before you commit to a run. If the sample reveals something, the specification is revised before bulk production. Deciding whether you need the sample is really just asking: is this a piece where I want to hold the object before I trust it?
This is part of our guide on Samples.
Related questions
More questions on this
Can I skip the sample and go straight from the approved CAD to production?+
For a simple, familiar design, yes — the approved CAD can be enough. For a one-off, a large stone or an unusual setting, a physical sample is the check that shows weight, comfort and how the stone sits before you commit to a run.
What can a sample reveal that the CAD cannot?+
Scale, weight, comfort, finish and how light plays on the metal — the physical qualities a screen render only approximates. A sample is the object; a CAD is a picture of it.
What happens if the sample needs changes?+
The design or production specification is revised before bulk production. Because the approved CAD is already the target, the sample is checked against it, and any correction happens before the full run is committed.
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