In the studio today: a handful of some rings I’m finishing up. These guys go through a series of finishing processes: sawing sprues off, filing rough and fine, sanding discs and papers coarse, medium, fine, sanding bristles coarse, medium, med-fine, fine, polishing compound rough discs, bristles, then buffing wheels (wash after), polishing compound “flossing” through any openwork (wash), then final polishing: medium (wash) & fine to finish (wash yet again). (I’ll set the stones tomorrow.)
This was an awesome ring to make. Raquel basically sent me a bunch of photos of things that she liked, a couple of stones, and let me go to town.
The stone we picked was a large, rough sapphire that Raquel personally plucked from the very dirt of Montana with her own two hands (!!!). It was huge and bumpy and quite unlike every other stone I had ever used. It also pretty much rocked (I know; slay me) and needed something unique to go with it. This is one of the most classic art-nouveau style rings perhaps I’ve ever carved.
Fairy iris: Raquel’s favorite flower.
My photos really don’t do this stone justice. It is mossy green with flecks of deep orange and gold through it.
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Uncle Bill got married! And I got to make the wedding bands!! Bill has spent a large portion of his life in and around water and on sailboats, trimarans mostly. Nimble little trimarans. So we of course went with a watery theme for both bands, ocean swells around two palladium bands. On Bill’s band I added a tiny trimaran. For Francine’s ring, we added a second contrasting 18K yellow band with delicate hammering.
This was a ring designed for an amazing oval diamond and two bright little side rubies. 18K yellow gold.
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It was inevitable that a larger version of my blooming rose solitaire would need to be made and I’m liking the results! This one with an ~.85ct diamond and in 14K white gold.
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A modern pair of palladium wedding bands with little flush-set sapphires!
This ring started out as a simple solitaire with a central diamond and a couple of ginkgo leaves on either side, then morphed into this awesomeness. 14K white gold and diamonds.
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Low-profile scattered ginkgo leaf wedding bands in 14K yellow gold.
This ring was cast into 14K palladium white gold, which has a slightly deeper color than the more common 14K nickel white gold. (Some people have nickel sensitivities or allergies, in which case I use a palladium white gold alloy.) It’s super subtle, but I think the deeper color went awesomely with the blue stone. The sapphire is a gorgeous 5.5mm stone with a clear Ceylon-blue color. I love how it turned out.
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I’ve carved a few pictorial panorama rings with similar themes: tree, ocean, wave, shell, etc. It is a really fun ring to carve because I get to have so much real-estate! On this one, the client wanted to have his favorite mountain: Mammoth Mountain in CA. The finished piece was cast into Palladium.
More photos after the jump of the full panarama… Continue reading