Six-stone Split Shank
This was a two-stone wedding band that my custy inherited, but wanted to adapt to a new design, as this one was a little, I don't know, kludgy. The component parts were just kind of slapped together without too much thought about showing off the diamonds to their best advantage. This is actually the first thing I think of when starting on a design. The other noteworthy fact about this job is the fact that, since it was originally the parental wedding band, it was sentimentally imperative to actually use the customer's gold in the piece. This we can do.
The other little wrinkle is that this ring was made using diamonds from two separate rings, Mom's and Grannie's, and they didn't exactly match, either for cut or size.
Now, granted, it's not always necessary, or even possible to use the old gold but, in this case, aside from some trace amounts of solder, the material we had to work with was usable as presented. Problem is, there wasn't quite enough, so we had to add enough so that the finished piece would be heavy enough for our conscience to put out there, plus enough extra to provide a margin of error and finishing. 5.35 grams seems like enough, but I like my stuff a bit heavier because I'm thinking about the future. This will be someone else's family heirloom someday, after all.
To that end, it made sense to make up a wax model of the ring so that the finished weight could be calculated. The proportions could be worked out as well, since we were adding diamonds to fill out the design. Knowing what I know now, I could have added the necessary gold to the mix and fired out the wax for casting, but I felt like bending some metal this day. The estimated weight of the finished ring necessitates adding 3.03 grams, but my usual procedure is to simply dump some casting grain into the mix until it looks about right, and then just run with it
Sad, really, but it's the way I do things. One of my basic precepts is that of avoiding false economies by, for example, measuring out the exact amount of gold and expecting everything to proceed according to plan. Life is full of surprises, and it's best to prepare for them. To this end, i ended up adding about six grams to allow for all the abuse to which I'm going to subject this bar.
The gold is cast up into a rectangulare ingot, which is then rolled down to a more-or-less square bar.
I guess that's pretty much it for measuring, because I made no notes during the making of this thing, for which I beg your forgiveness. This is, after all, more a recipe than a blueprint, a frequent motif in my methodology.
This bar is then rolled out square and, through cunning use of the rolling mill, tapered to the projected proportions, allowing for all the hammering and shaping that will take place. Basically, this is all educated guess-work, because every ring is different. Knowing what the final weight is going to be, within reason, we have to assume that this is the correct size of tapered blank that we're going to need, and just run with it. This is not, after all, my first rodeo.
Once the bar is long enough to be bent around into a ring shape, it is bent around into a ring shape. That is, a shape somewhat similar to a ring in shape. I need a whisky.
There, better now. It's Sunday afternoon, after all, and this is the tradition.
As you can see, the ends of the bar are kind of rugged looking. That will not do.
By carefully sawing off the ends and filing them to fit, the ring can be closed up and soldered.
You may notice how nice and round the ring blank is at this point. That is something that, I think, will make the rest of the job so much easier, because we're not starting out with a lump of metal that has to be pounded into shape just to get started. If everything is nice and pretty at each stage of the operation, the following steps will just go that much easier. This is the word according to me.
From here, it's a matter of pounding the living bejeezus out of this thing, but in a carefully controlled manner, always keeping in mind the image of the future ring. The process is complicated by my stubborn insistence on the bumps at the back of the shank. These are located at roughly ninety degrees from each other at the bottom of the ring. At this point, however, it is just necessary to leave ample material down there so that, as the hammering progresses, the exact location of the bumps can be fine-tuned. It is important to anneal the ring often so that distortions don't creep in and make our job that much more complicated.
During this whole procedure, the symmetry of the ring is checked often to avoid distortions that will cause problems later. Hammering the sides flat periodically will help to keep the shape from getting too far from our projected shape. When once the shape is developed, through repeated whacking and annealing, it can be roughly filed to shape so as to present two flat sides. It's important to have the sides nice and flat and consistent, because the next stage demands it.
Layout lines are scribed into the blank to confirm the centre of the top of the ring, as well as the middle of the shank, preparatory to splitting it. If this symmetry is neglected, nothing but trouble will result. A brandy-new saw blade is important as well, as we want the cut to be as smooth and straight as is humanly possible. Proceeding slowly so that the mistakes don't get too big, the ring is split as shown to about two-thirds of the way around. With some split-shanks, a flared outline is desirable, but for our needs here, the ring needs to be split almost all the way down to the bumps so as to present flat sides.
When the cut is deep enough, the ring can be opened up to accommodate the largest diamond. In this case, that would be a thirty-eight point old European cut, so about 4.5mm. Open it gradually and anneal it if it appears to be fighting you. Don't want to be trying to forces things at this late date. We've already got a bunch of time invested, so it behooves us to slow down and make sure that there are no setbacks.
Once it has been opened to the required width, there needs to be some bracing done so that, at some not-too-distant time in the future, the stones don't all fall out. This is accomplished using a couple of pre-shaped braces fitted into slots carved into the sides of the ring. Flush joints would work, maybe, but I've always found that fitting the components accurately before soldering makes the whole process go that much more smoothly.
After soldering, we can check the size, the stone sizes, and the finished weight before finishing.
From here, some magic happens, in that the stones are channel-set into the ring and everything is finished up according to the high standards which my customers have come to expect.
Now, I'm the first to admit that the process is nothing even approaching filled out here, but it's just a little Sunday afternoon project to see who might be interested. There are probably better ways to do something like this, but this is, after all, my so-called website, and I'm the boss.
Thank you for your attention.