Akasha cosplay skirt (part 2 - shells and rings)

Akasha cosplay skirt piece

After being on vacation for a while I finally finished the the Akasha cosplay skirt shells (for the front at least).  It consists of 50 shells drilled and connected via gold finished rings.  It can also be adjusted by adding additional rows and columns if necessary.  This ended up being half the amount I have and expected to use due to an error in my estimation of ring sizes.  I had some rings on hand and thought they were 14 gauge, 1/2" diameter rings so that is what I placed an order for.  They turned out to be 16 gauge with a slightly smaller diameter.  The end result was a bit of re-drilling for the larger rings and slightly more space between shells.  The plus of the mistake is that they move a lot better than the previous size and there is enough shells to do a full front and back decoration.  I learned after this problem that there are pdf's available on the internet where you can print and match the gauge size on this type of ring (pdf's should always print the same regardless of printer).  It shows that sometimes cut twice measure once can work out anyway if you look at the pros and cons of the mistake.