Recent Custom Work: Repurposing Family Jewels Into New Heirlooms

This spring one of my favorite couples came to me with a very special custom request: Create a new wedding ring and anniversary band to replace the originals that had been stolen some years ago.  Utilizing the couple's unworn family jewelry that had been sitting in the back of a jewelry box, we were able to completely cover the cost of the project - including the purchase of a 1.5 ct, nearly-flawless, pear cut natural diamond.  We also repurposed 12 total family diamonds into the channel-set band.  Side note: custom projects are something I do a lot of these days, including reusing or melting your scrap gold in the piece (more info on how that works here).

This was such a special project, not only because of what this couple had been through, but because the love between these two is just so palpable.  It's always been a joy to work with them, and I was honored to be able to create such important, intimate rings for them.

Follow along as I document the process of how these two custom-made wedding rings were created - from hand-sculpting the wax models for the lost-wax casting process, to selecting diamonds, to raw castings and finishing, and finally setting the diamonds in these two knockout rings.