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Designing and Making Custom Wedding Bands?
dystrophy asks: "I'm planning on getting married shortly after I graduate in December. Because I'm a student who doesn't work much, I don't have tons of money to spend on an engagement ring/wedding band. After discussing this situation with friends and family, I discovered that poverty is the great equalizer. My parents designed their own wedding bands and had them cast for relatively little money because they inherited diamonds and gold from their family. Because of finances, they decided to forgo the engagement ring and spend what they had on wedding bands. I have some decent quality diamonds and gold from my family. I haven't talked to my "wife to be" about the engagement ring yet (touchy topic), but she might be willing to go with a simple engagement ring, or just put the money toward a wedding band. I have just started doing research on the topic of designing rings. I have talked to several jewelry designers in the Bay Area, but they don't want to deal with me. They want to sell me their diamonds and gold (I've heard various and interesting excuses from each). How should I go about this? Where should I go? When it comes down to the design, should I just work with my wife-to-be to create sketches to give a designer, or is something more needed? Any really cool ideas and designs for wedding bands?"
Why don't you buy your wife to be a set of pots and a lawnmower. No sense wasting money on useless jewelry.
go for something that embodies you two as a unity, don't worry about tradition (gold and diamonds). Symbolize it with words and/or design or some metal that can also function as a sundial, or a compass, or something functional. Be different.
I mean, if you wanted a GPRS/Bluetooth ring, I'd understand...
Anyhow, one idea I can offer for "cool" rings, if you like black (clothes and etc), is Zirconium. It's not just for fake jewels; unlike its crystalline form, its metal state is non-tarnishing and a very cool greyish-black. My wedding ring is half zirconium, half yellow gold (like the top and bottom halves of a sandwich).
My wife has a big 'ol honkin' rock - it's a 4 carat clear Opal. It draws a lot of comment and was within our budget, but as it's a soft mineral it requires some extra care.
Perfectly Normal Industries
deSignet International
I had a great experience buying from this company, but I didn't get a custom designed ring from them. They state outright that they do custom designs. They may be open to using client-furnished materials, too.
I designed a wedding ring for my wife when we were living in Seattle. I found a custom jewelry place, and they used the gold and diamond from her engagement ring. I came in with pictures/sketches of *sorta* what I wanted (I'm not a jewelry designer) and then they had their designer make a mock up in wax, which they used to make the mold for the gold ring. My wife loved the ring, and it is much more special for the time and attention... we are also guaranteed that no one else has one just like it. :)
Pfft. Just get her a nice 800 carat cubic zirconia from Big Ass Diamonds.com.
I haven't talked to my "wife to be" about the engagement ring yet (touchy topic)
Ewww. Good grief.
My advice. Run away, don't look back.
If you're looking to save money by going custom think again.
:-)
My fiancee and I had her engagement ring custom made. We had them get a selection of stones to look at instead of trying to get them elsewhere, however, if they pushed issue we would have gone elsewhere. My feeling though was that we could have brought our own stones in.
We worked with the designer to get something we liked. They know how the metals and stones work with each other. This is their field of expertise. Your job is get something you like at a price you can afford.
We also had to get a custom wedding band made for my fiancee because of the design we had. That might be something to think about as well.
Just my several thousand dollars of experience worth.
Buy a second hand ring. They seem to have almost no resale value what so ever.... There are way to may folks out there who spent mad cash on an engagement ring and had things go sour. Their loss, your win. Do your homework, however, and it might not be in your best interest to say it came from some dead lady's estate auction or Bob's pawn shop. Sounds like your time is cheap. Take the time to know when and what a good deal is...
Second, look for the combo engagement / wedding set. A simple 1/3 carrot diamond will save much heartache later. I'd say buy a modest CZ and swap the gem later, but that has critical fumble written all over it. You can always upgrade the gem later in life, but odds are she wont. (You will end up purchasing other jewelry later in life, however...)
Lastly, get yourself a plain wedding band. Keep it simple, second hand preferred.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Damn. I wish I hadn't just wasted my mod points.
...find a decent pawn shop in the area, and check out the stones and settings they have. If you've done some looking at more "reputable" jewelry stores, and learn how to look at a stone with a loupe to check for visible flaws, color, etc., you can get a very nice piece of "ice" for about 1/3 the price, and they'll usually throw in a simple setting in white or yellow gold for free.
My parents did it, (no engagement ring, just wedding bands) I've done it already with the engagement ring, and I think I'll probably be able to get her to go for it on the wedding bands, as well.
Going the custom-design route can be very cool, but unless you know a jewelry designer and/or metalsmith, it's probably just a good way to end up with some very nice mental images or sketches of the ring of your dreams.
Sure, wedding rings are traditional, but i think a cock ring would be more practical. At least more useful on your wedding night.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
My advice to you is to wait to get married. It's probably already too late for you, but it is good advice for anyone else thinking of getting married. There is no reason to rush into getting married. Your marriage is more likely to last if you wait until you are more established befor you tie the knot.. You won't have to fight about money, you won't be tempted to start a family that you can't afford, and you won't start making joint purchases that you don't have money for.
Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
My wedding ring is half zirconium, half yellow gold (like the top and bottom halves of a sandwich).
Only on slashdot would you see someone describe the ultimate material symbol of his lifelong unending love, as a sandwich.
What a website!
Photos.
When my Dad passed away, my Mom had the 3 rings (engagement, his/hers wedding bands) melted down and made into a custom ring using the diamond from the engagement ring. The guy that did the work (Phoenix AZ) is an artist that specializes in jewelry, not a jeweler that does custom work. You couldn't buy the stones or the metal (gold silver whatever) from him. His work was flawless, and my Mom will be forever happy with the ring. And he did not charge jewelers prices, in fact we were all surprised how inexpensive it was, considering the obvious quality.
:)
Remember, gold usually can only me formed once or twice before surface pitting becomes a issue. Make sure any "used" gold is not a re-formed ring.
--
On a side note, if you can't talk to your fiance about the engagement ring because its a "touchy subject" she may not be the one for you. Common interests and understanding speak volumes.
Good luck.
There is no such thing as a wedding band. It is called a wedding ring. He should be hit with a shoe for saying such a thing. That name is a fabrication of the corrupt dogs in the jewelry industry.
Repeal the DMCA!
Nothing says I love you like a simple gold band engraved with the runes of the black speech of Mordor. Why years from now your spouse will be fondly calling it her "preciousss."
My wife and I got engaged a few years ago, and we didn't have much money. We didn't have much money either, but we did get diamonds from different sections of our family. Not high quality diamonds, but I'd take family heirlooms over commercial diamonds any day.
:). It's not very romantic, but you and your wife-to-be should design the ring together. It's going to be on her finger, and she probably cares about the design more then you anyways, so she should have input.
We couldn't afford two rings, so we designed a single ring that had two parts: An engagement band that had a few diamonds on it which she wore for a year, and a wedding band that fit around the engagement band. It cost far less then two different rings.
They want to sell me their diamonds and gold
You may not be able to use your own gold.
Most jewelers are very picky about their gold quality, and don't want to run into the chance of your gold being less pure, and thus harder to work with (Big deal with working with small details).
We ended up selling some of our gold to the jewler that made our ring, for around the jewler-market price (which is less then what you see in Wall Street Journal).
However, I do know that there are jewelers (mostly smaller shops) who would use your gold. Just be persistent.
When it comes down to the design, should I just work with my wife-to-be to create sketches to give a designer, or is something more needed?
I'm a big fan of feminism: Equal rights, and equal responsibility
As for how to choose a jeweler, the guy who designed her ring was nice, but slow, so we won't recommend him. However, we really liked these two places:
- There's another place on College Ave. in Berkeley or Oakland called "The Family Jules" or something. They were our second choice for my ring, and they had alot of rings for women also.
- I really liked the family who did my ring. I got a rose-gold keltic-style band at MacManus and Sons on Shattuck in Berkeley. They are very well known (especially in the Geek community), and I've had a number of people comment on their high quality and friendly store. Mr. MacManus is a nice guy, and he cleans and fixes my ring for free.
My wife and I had 4 sketches, we took it to several jeweler, and had them draw out a better sketch. We chose our jewler based on price, design and personality. However, I wouldn't recommend him to anyone, because he was slow.
We talked to 4 different artists. Two of them were recommended by friends, and the other two were selling their pretty goods at the Ren Faire.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I haven't talked to my "wife to be" about the engagement ring yet (touchy topic)
I assume by this comment that your WTB places a high value on the rings she gets out of the deal. If she is truly the right woman for you...she wouldn't care how good the ring was...because it's just a thing...it's not important...the commitment to each other is the important thing.
My comments may be crap...but they are my crap...and I am brave enough to stand by them...Never post as AC!
We had our wedding bands made here in Little Rock, AR at a place called "Cecil's Fine Jewelry"... We took in a sketch and the guy designed them using a CAD-like program specifically designed for ring design.. He would render shots of the rings and email us the results.. The the CAD file was shipped to California somewhere and was carved on a computer controlled milling machine. This resulted in a wax version of the rings. Then it was a simple thing to cast the real rings from the wax one by making molds, etc.
Here's a computer rendering of the rings.
Rendering
Here's the final rings.
Real Rendering
Another ask Slashdot about wedding rings/bands... is there some taboo about re-reading old discussions? how often do topics need to re-emerge? Really, should certain topics be on a recurrent posting schedule? how about case mods? or anything holiday oriented? (for that matter can we just get a monthly windows security alert?)
I'm off topic and proud.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Check out Wave.
He does really good work and is a very no-bullshit sort of guy.
I forget what 8 was for.
I haven't talked to my "wife to be" about the engagement ring yet (touchy topic),...
A few people have already said something along these lines, but let me make it a bit more explicit. If this topic gets her emotional than perhaps you'd better do whatever the hell she wants. She clearly cares about this issue and I don't think you are doing yourself a service by researching something behind her back. That is, unless you feel equally passionate about the subject of engagement rings (however, most guys don't). At the very least should be discussing this openly with her. I think she's going to be mucho pissedo (that's Spanish for "very upset") that you are soliciting the opinions of a bunch of online geeks that you've never met before sitting down with her and having a very heart-to-heart talk about this. Remember, if there is one thing that women want, it's to be the #1 priority in your life. She wants you to listen to her opinions and feelings. Not to tell her there are "better ways".
Personally, I would discuss the wedding ring issue with your girlfriend RIGHT NOW and make sure she's at least open to options. If she's not, then drop it. Do what she wants. If she is open to new ideas, THEN start to do your research, perhaps getting her to help you. I don't know your girlfriend but most women would not be pleased to find out that you've done all this research on ring alternatives without even discussing the idea with her first.
GMD
watch this
My father-in-law custom made our wedding bands, he makes dental bridges and implements (correct term?) for a living. The skills are pretty similar.
That's sort of along the lines of the person who recommended an artist... try to find someone with the skills to do it that might be willing to do it on the side.
_sig_ is away
Some of these questions have popped up on Slashdot earlier and you can search older stories for some suggestions.
Two important things.
It's vitally important you and your mate-to-be feel very comfortable about communicating with one another honestly. You should be able to ask her what she thinks about jewelry, engagement rings, wedding bands. And she should be able to tell you honestly what she thinks ("Really - everythings fine!" [goes off to pout]). If it turns out that she doesn't say what she means, then you're in for some rough times ahead. But you should know by now whether or not that's the case.
Don't go for the geek chic titanium rings because they can't be easily sawed off if, say, someone gains weight and the ring starts to feel constricted.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I got my wife's engagement ring made in a store in Walnut Creek (a fairly large town in the East SF Bay Area). I wish I could remember the name. I think it was something like Goldsmith of Walnut Creek. Anyway, I do believe they were on Main Street, on the East side of the street. Doing a quick search on superpages for that gives me this address/phone: 1362 North Main St. 925-937-5430.
:-)
They took the diamonds that I gave them. I picked out a setting and a sapphire, and they made the ring exactly as I wanted, with my diamonds set next to the new sapphire. This was something like 8 years ago, so I can't say how they would be today.
Good luck!
BTW, my wife loved (and still loves) the ring.
Why would you put a ring on your chicken?
Actually, why the hell would you even bring a chicken on your honeymoon???
Damn. Why waste all that time on something that doesn't really fucking matter anyway? I mean, how god damned pretensious and materialistic does your "love" have to be?
Just get a couple cheap rings and be done with it. Any chick who gives much of a fuck over a couple god damned stones and a ring of metal isn't worth dealing with. You're out spending 6 months salary on an engagement ring and 18 months salary on a wedding ring - what the fuck is she offering?
I mean, seriously.. this kind of thing is bullshit. I can't believe guys actually get roped into this out-dated concept.
My wife's diamond was a famly heirloom. For the engagement ring, we had it set into a white gold estate piece we got inexpensively. The jewler cut us a deal since we had to have custom bands (his and hers) made to order if we wanted them to match. He cut us a deal on the engagement ring and we gave him the business for the bands.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Mission College has a great jewelry making program, they are in Santa Clara, talk to the instructors, Ileen Hill was great 10 years or so ago.
Plato seems wrong to me today
I think society has you a bit trained about what is acceptable. I put it simply: Diamonds are murder. Diamonds support terror.
So-called conflict diamonds are re-sourced via Amsterdam, just like oil from Iraq was re-routed via Turkey. Diamonds only have value because of their monopoly status, too. Please think of this before committing to diamonds.
Much better to go with semi-precious stones. Can you imagine the trouble over losing a ring worth over $1000? It still surprises me that this is often the most expensive item a person wears. Certainly there are more useful things one can buy or do to show one's devotion.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
When my wife and I got married we didn't have alot of money. We took my parents (they were dead) wedding rings and had the gold melted down and combined into two new rings. We wanted them to be special and we'd always been interested in the topology and symbolism of a mobius strip (one sided one edged object).
We found a local designer and presented our request and made him a couple of mobius strips outta paper so he got the idea. It took him a couple of molds to get it right but he ended up giving us two beautiful mobius wedding rings. The half-twist was positioned to be just a bit left of center top, so it wasn't uncomfortable (having the twist against your skin) and he flattened the bottom slightly so the twist wouldn't 'twist' around our fingers (e.g., stay in position).
The total price, for everything (remember, we supplied the gold) was $90, and he had gold left over which he gave us back. (this was 25 years ago though).
The first time we put them on we kinda wondered if we'd disappear in a puff of time, but nothing happened (that we could tell).
Aloha Nui
that expands and contracts to fit the wearer's finger, confers the power of invisibility, and displays odd-looking runes on its interior, when heated.
And when you talk to your "Precious", she'll think you mean
-her-!
Ummmm... wedding bands are the inexpensive ones. It's the 'engagement' ring which often costs a mint. The wedding band is just a plain band of gold. Ours were about $70 for the pair, and there wasn't much design put into them, just specifying the size. Or are people wearing something really weird and ornate now for a wedding ring?
Now I've seen everything: a dupe Ask Slashdot (well, sort of).
If so, check out LifeGem as a source for your diamond. No, it's not necessarily cheap, but it makes the subject more pertinent to this site.
Still single?
i'd suggest that you check with a local machine shop ... my wife and i had a custom engraving on the outside of our rings ... in hebrew text, it reads "Ani l'dodi v'dodi li", which translates to "i am my beloved, and my beloved is mine" ... we live in Boston, and you think it'd be easy to find a jeweler here willing to do this engravement work ... but, no ... we wandered all around the city, and never came up with someone ... most people either wouldn't be able to do the hebrew glyphs or they only knew how to engrave on the inside or a ring (huh?) ... we ended up going through a tiny family-owned shop in my old home town in maine ... the guy who runs it now was a full-time artist for a few years, and said "no problem" to our request, but it'd just take a bit to get a die made to help him do the actual engraving ... luckily, my dad works as a designer for an automation company ... he brought in a printout of the text we wanted and asked one of the CAD drafters to make up a template ... they then downloaded it into the milling machines, with sufficient scaling to do the curves properly, and soon enough we had our engraving die cut into a nice chunk of aluminum stock ... brought this into the jeweler, and he filed it down a bit, cleaned up the edges, and all things like that ... the rings we had this done on are two-tone, with a wider gold ring in the middle and a plantinum band around the outside ... he did the engraving right around the outside platinum band, sizing things appropriately for each ring (my ring is a size 11, my wife's is 6.5) ... he even did the whole engraving thing for free, since he said he was making enough money on the plain rings not to worry about the extra work it required ...
good luck, dude
09
My parents are Jewish, and the jewish tradition is to not have stones in the wedding band. (This comes from the fact that originally, jewels have 'negotiable' value, whereas precious metal's value is 'absolute'. And a marrige contract is just that, a contract.)
Anyway, being the semi-geeks that they are, they have Moebius rings. Neat.
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
If you're using your own diamonds and you don't know the dealer all that well, be careful that your stones don't get switched for lower quality ones.
-- John Truong
i just found out what my wife liked and then went to a jeweler in my hometown and had them design it
half the price of where i live and she loves the ring
---- Put Sig here:
Just send the gold and diamonds to me, I'll design and build it for you, for free. Honest.
Slashdot: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
Well, not to say your upcoming wedding isn't important, but I can't quite see how it all relates to the general genre of this site. It seems I've had a growing concern regarding the contents of Slashdot since mid last year, and I often question / wonder how one chooses an everyday delemma over a funky new scientific discovery to post to the geek community.
I apologise if this is the wrong place for such a comment, but hasn't anybody else noticed the rising trend? I just want News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters!
When my wife and I became engaged, we went to the jewelers and picked out a ring together. Upon putting on the ring we chose, she immediately turned red :) It was 200 (polish) zlotys which was about $50 at the time.
Luckily for me, diamonds are not traditional for her; infact, she did not want a diamond. We simply bought gold bands with a cut design in them and had them engrave the title of 'our song' inside, "No More Shall We Part" (Nick Cave). Each ring was $100.
There isn't any use is spending loads of cash on your rings. Save the money for your new house/apartment/car/computer or invite more guests to the wedding, etc.
Man, I'm glad I live in a country where prostitution is legal and affordable, and I don't have to subject myself to the emotional terror regime of some fucked-up bitch. The Rules, anyone?
Tom did a great job listening to our design constraints (small fingers, unconsciously abusive to jewelry) and made great rings for us. They are mostly platinum with some yellow gold. I think he spent about two hours or so going over our design and making changes to make it structurally sound, to protect the diamonds better, etc. He explained how the rigs would wear, suggested certain features (mostly invisible things to make the rings more comfortable to wear), and did a great job. Not cheap, but about what I had planned to spend.
And like a hundrred others have said, learn to communicate with her NOW, before it's too late.
Some ideas on how this process works. You can have a custom ring cast. You can choose from pre-made waxes, some stores carry a nice selection or thousands can be found in catalogs. You can typically choose from materials like various carets of Gold, 14K White Gold, various grades of Silver like Fine Silver, Platinum, or something less common (more rare or unique or creative) like Copper.
... ... Tools Catalog for 2003 The new Rio Grande Tools & Equipment catalog features high-quality ...
... Contact Tumblecraft. Telephone ...
Another option is you can carve your own wax and have it cast which would really give you the ultimate control over the design process.
You can engage a graphic artist or do up something yourself in something like Photoshop to be used as a template and have the wax carved by and expert.
Of course the more reasonably priced option would be a pre-made wax and something like Silver or supply your own gold and precious gems as was described.
I've had consistent results with a flexible company http://www.sandiegomint.com
For catalogs the experts use try:
Rio Grande Jewelry Making Supplies - Everything for Creating,
tools, equipment and supplies for jewelry design and manufacturing.
Description: Supplier to the professional jeweler and hobbyist of jewelry findings, gems and stringing supplies,...
Category: Shopping > Jewelry > Supplies
http://www.riogrande.com/
A great brick and mortar for waxes and other supplies:
K'S TUMBLECRAFT
Tumblecraft. Home of the world's most affordable
763-560-0736 FAX 763-560-4358 Postal address Tumblecraft 5401 James Ave. No.
http://www.tumblecraft.com/
I just came across this skimming over some of the sites above:
YOUR PIECE OF FINE JEWELRY
(The San Diego Mint Process)
Steps:
1) Imagination + Idea + Craftsmanship
2) The idea becomes a sketch.
3) The sketch is etched onto a metal plate.
4) The etched metal plate is placed in rubber and vulcanized.
5) The rubber mold is cut open and the metal plate removed, leaving an exact replica in the rubber mold of the piece to be created.
6) A special wax is then injected into the rubber mold, producing an exact replica of the sketched piece.
7) The wax model is removed from the rubber mold. (See *Note)
8) The wax model is then placed on a wax base set in a rubber base. This holds the wax model up about two inches off the bottom of the container.
9) A metal cylinder is then placed over the wax and secured in the rubber base. This creates a cylindrical container that is open at the top.
10) A liquid plaster-like substance called "investment" is then poured into the container, filling it. This imbeds the wax pattern completely.
11) Once the investment is dry, it is marked for identification and the rubber base is removed. This leaves the metal cylinder now open at both ends with the wax and investment inside it.
12) The cylinder, with the imbedded wax piece and the investment, is placed in a kiln for several hours. The wax melts and is burned out in temperatures over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit, thus the name "Lost Wax Process".
13) We now have a red hot metal cylinder and hot investment with a hole in it where the wax model had been. A hole exactly like the wax model.
14) The hot flask of investment is then placed in a centrifugal casting machine where molten metal is forced into the hole creating an exact duplicate of the wax, in metal.
15) The very hot metal flask with the now heated metal piece inside is then placed in a water bath and the piece is hand cleaned to remove the investment.
16) The final product is checked, stamped, and polished. This part of the process takes approximately seven hours.
17) The now completed memory in metal is then packaged, insured, and shipped to you for your enjoyment.
This process is long and laborious using many man hours,
but it produces the quality of jewelry we want to present to you.
Enjoy!
*Note: Waxes can be hand carved as well, eliminating the need for an etched plate.
back in the day, there was no engagement ring. Well, there was, but it was the wedding band. You would pick out your wedding bands, and then your fiance would wear the band on the ring finger on her right hand until the wedding day, when it was moved to the left hand.
If your fiance balks at not getting an engagement ring, tell her you're following in your (hopefully) German heritage. It'll probably be a good conversation starter, and sounds better than, "We decided not to get an engagement ring." Which, BTW, translates into, "My stupid fiance is too cheap to buy be a frikken ring!"
Just a thought.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
I recommend taking a look at Tradeshop. There is a wealth of information on their website, and be sure to take a look at their specials. You can also read client letters and see previews of client (who have given permission) custom rings in the making
And, yes, this is who made my wife's engagement and wedding rings and my wedding band (custom platinum and gold celtic design). The customer service was outstanding, there was always a real person to talk to at the other end of the telephone.
There website seems to have had an overhaul since I last visited (more polished). It used to have more of a roll your own flavor with colorful commentary (including spelling mistakes). (update, I just checked, the colorful commentary is still there :)
Logic is not Divine.
Better make sure the engagement ring is the appropriate percentage of your yearly wages, or you will never hear the end of it.
If you want to truly test the strength of your relationship, propose over the phone. *ring* "Hi! This is your engagement ring! Will you marry me?"
...
First, congrats :)
... we're getting her a motorcycle so we can ride together ... screw "paper anniversary", this is our "v-twin anniversary"). This is something I've spent alot of time on a year ago, and we are very happy with the results, so this is one in-depth posting :)
:) It's not that there's not LOTS of great content on Tradeshop.com ... if anything, there's too much ... we felt a bit lost on their page the first couple of times ... but if you have an hour or two to surf through all the information it is quite amazing!
:) ... if you don't want to go through all of the steps below, Ray will be perfectly willing to do up your design based on sketches.
... don't by high karat gold just because it sounds good). We wanted platinum because we tend to beat on jewelry and my wife's engagement ring is platinum with a sapphire and 2 diamonds (the sapphire in my ring matches hers quite well ... another benefit to using Tradeshop was they have a great selection of stones and I designed our rings to match her engagament ring while still having a celtic design).
... the vector format allowed me to export to whatever resolution Ray needed to have to get a crisp design and also allowed me to tweak it for a tattoo later ;) I sent Ray a very quick and cheesy 3D rendering of what we were looking for using this black and white design as a bump map. He has a low-res (high res for the web, low res compared to print) version of the design that was touched up a bit (we wanted platinum, so he had to change the line weights a bit to improve the casting process) online here.
My wife and I went through the same thing a little over a year ago looking for rings (in fact, our anniversary is Monday
We found a number of custom jewelers online and emailed/phoned a few of them to get a feel for the process. We ended up going with the folks at Tradeshop.com. Ray (the master jeweler) was very easy to work with and tradeshop produced very high quality work. At first I was going to go with another artist who had a better designed website, but we found that in this case the site design was a reverse indicator of quality
If you have the time, browse their site and look at their works in progress. There are literally thousands of examples of custom designs on their website. You can also see predesigned Celtic rings at their Celticrings.com for more examples of their detail work, just remember that Tradeshop will do just about any design, not just celtic.
While you can send Ray a few simple sketches and let him go wild (and he does a great job with this), we already knew what we wanted. We were involved in every facet of the design process and he still has our stuff online so here's a quick list of what we did including links to pictures. It's important to realize I'm anal retentive with my graphics (and I wanted to minimize design costs
NOTE: If you want even more crisp designs, gold is actually a better option (a white gold or low-karat yellow gold will be a bit firmer than 24 karat gold
1) I roughly sketched out the design we wanted (zoomorphic cats and triskellions) in a paint program based on some hand drawings and scans
2) I used a vector program to then trace the sketches
It took 2-3 weeks for him to have the time to work on our design and then we went back and forth for a week or two approving tweaks and making tweaks ourselves. Tradeshop has a large number of custom designs on order at any given time and this is a FIFO (first in, first out) process, so make sure you start this process at least 2 months before your wedding. We cut ou
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
When my wife and I were engaged we were living in New Zealand. We did not like the look of the standard rings available or their price so we ended up having a jeweler make one for us. My wife designed one that had the jewels (and opal and 2 reasonable diamonds) in a patterns that she liked plus the added feature that the wedding band slots into the ring to form one unit. I bet that your Hunka-Burning-Love would really enjoy designing her own ring for the conversation piece value assuming that you can find someone here in the states to make it. I am told that Asian Indinan jewelers have a lot of skill and experience in doing custom gold work.
I'm getting a matched set of handmade turkshead rings for my wedding. Loren at golden knots is great, and the samples we saw were wonderful.
After my experience dealing with him, I would happily steer some more business his way. Unfortunately, this comment is a day late and probably won't be read by anyone.
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A mechanical engineering classmate of my from undergrad made his own wedding bands. Since we had access to a machine shop, he bought some titanium stock and went to work on a lathe. I don't really recommend this unless you have a decent amount of machining experience. Torus-shaped parts are tricky to make.
'Q' is for Dr. Tran
Unless your girlfriend is unusual (in a good way, perhaps) she wants a nice big diamond. She wants to show it to her friends and her friends want to see it. If her friends don't see it they'll think you're a creep. It's been explained to me as a 'deposit'.
.75 with a blue phosphorescence and depth and table percentages right around 60 [do your homework, everyone tells my wife her diamond is the most sparkly they've seen, but it's just cut right and not from the department store], so I didn't have much luck locally) but you can save about half from buying from a direct importer from Isreal (where they cut most diamonds). I had good luck with these folks.
Yep, stupid social traditions, but there they are.
If you want to avoid supporting DeBeers, get a second-hand diamond, they're "forever", remember? If you're picky, you'll have to get new (I wanted a brilliant cut VVSI G
For the Wedding bands, we did well at Sam's Club. Simple gold bands can be had for about $50 each, I think we splurged for the $70 variety. But the wedding band isn't important, there's a ceremony coincident with them which is far more important. There's no engagement ceremony though, so the engagement ring is very important.
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think about it way in advance. I'm getting hitched in 2 weeks and being a procrastinator, put off the ring buying stuff until Thursday. There were some lovely patterned bands at the jewellers, but they would take 3 weeks to order in, too late (My fiancee's getting his late father's ring so he's all taken care of). So I'm just having a $50 plain-as gold band and then maybe later we'll both get something custom made up for a 10th anniversary gift or something.
My wife had long commented that she had a number of stones, but that she didn't have a nice star sapphire.
Add to that, the fact that since star sapphires can be manufactured, nobody wants to pay for a real one [followed by the fact that nobody wants a fake one, since they all must be fake], so good star sapphires were relatively hard to find.
So anyhow, for our engagement, I went down to Rocky's Gold and Silver in Weyers Cave, VA, and saw a 5mm x 7 mm estate star sapphire mounted with four microdimonds in a nice silver ring. Since it was old, it also was natural.
I asked my girlfriend what she thought about estate jewelry, and she said that it just meant to her that an old person had had it before her, and she liked old people, so it was no problem.
So anyhow, the ring was listed at $70; they had it on automatic estate-item markdown of 20%, so it was $56. That wasn't too bad. Anyhow, she liked it, and I guess she liked me, because we're married and have a son now.
In general, you might want to check out estate jewelry and see what your girlfriend thinks. Diamonds dive in price if they're not new; gold doesn't, but there isn't that much gold in a ring.
PS: if you're not near the intersection of I-81 and I-64E, don't bother with who Rocky's Gold and Silver are. If you are near there, be advised that this was 1995 or so, and I can't guarantee that they haven't changed. But their deals were great back then. Since they did deal honestly and well, I feel honor bound to give their name and location.
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but to switch the topic to the engagement rings for a moment: before the DeBeers cartel (monopoly) became the marketing machine it is today, pearls were the engagement gift - not diamonds. I don't like diamonds b/c of DeBeers - conflict diamonds are just another reason to not like something that washes up on beaches, and is of little intrinsic value.
You're getting married in 8 months and you can't talk to your soon to be wife because it's a touchy subject? It's not gonna get any easier. Wait til the issue of finances come up. I hope you are prepared.
Jewelers charge 200% markup, they call it the Triple Keystone price.
;)
The problem is, they are charging that because they mostly have to. They need to have a jeweler on staff to put people's stones back in the mounting, size rings, etc. Jewelers expect to be paid reasonably well. They have to pay insane insurance on all of the diamonds that are just lying around.
Now, the problem is, it's not going to save you any to have the jeweler do stuff for you. Any savings in them not needing to keep stock goes towards the jeweler's money.
They probably don't want to bother with your gems and materials because then you'd know what the triple keystone is. It's also got less surprises. There may be lead or oxides in the metal.
Probably the best way to go, if you want to do things cheap, is to pick your rock out first -- Downtown SF is the place to get them, or if you've got something particular in mind, search online.
If you don't have your heart set on casting it with existing metal, you can always buy pre-made rings and prongs. Google search for "Findings".
The bitchy, evil part is actually putting the damn stone into the prongs. The rest is just simple brazing (a.k.a. hard soldering) that anybody can do. Screw the prongs up too much and the diamond will fall out of the prongs at the wrong moment. Oops.
Other strategies you can try are to bring a wax version of the ring and the metal to a casting foundry and have them do it. Much more likely than folks in the US.
See if a jeweler will just set the stone, nothing else. Or, be sneaky and say "Oh, the stone fell out of my ring, could you set it back in?"
Or go to India, where it's standard operating procedure to provide your own materials if necessary. But then you have to go to India and buy tickets. Oops.
You can generally gather notions about what she'll want just by going to any jewelery store and browsing. Just remember what the common feature is.
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http://www.ganoksin.com/ This is a jewelers resource, and home of the jeweler's forum "Orchid". You should be able to find someone through Orchid that can help you out.
"Choosy browsers choose
My sister is a jewerly designer, she use to work in the bay area years ago. She has now moved back to the midwest and opened up her own store. She has made a number of custom wedding sets using the customers own diamonds, however using their gold is something she won't do. She says it has something to do with the purity (I don't exactly know) of the gold. But the gold is the cheapest component. Keep looking around, finding a jewelry that will reset your diamonds is possible and actually hard to believe that you are having trouble finding one.
I'd try calling/emailing some of the re-enacters in your area and asking them. There's often good tradesfolk among them who are happy to work with special designs.
Good luck, and congratulations.
Ralf
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
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