As this commission is such a lovely illustration of how the remodelling process works, I decided to write a blog about it!
A customer came to us before Christmas with two 18ct yellow gold rings that held a huge amount of sentimental value for her. She wanted to explore the possibility of having a bespoke ring made. The first thing to do was sit down with her and work out exactly what she would like – she knew that she wanted a ring, rather than a bracelet or pendant, but had no particular ideas beyond that. We looked at lots of different ring styles and worked out that she would prefer a wider ring, and that she liked colour in jewellery. I suggested a ring with a few smaller, different coloured gemstones and she was really taken with this idea.
I discussed some ideas with Jemma, and she got to work with her coloured paper and pencils! A lot of jewellers now use computer aided design (CAD) to show a rendered image of a piece, but we think that there is nothing as lovely as a hand illustrated design, especially for a handcrafted piece. We are very lucky to have Jemma on our team as she is quite the artist! Customers are always delighted with her sketches of ideas for their bespoke designs.
We sent the ideas through to our customer to mull over and asked her to call back in so that we could discuss them in detail. With sample pieces from the workshop, we were able to give her a clear idea of how the final piece would look. The stacking rings were the winning design and our customer decided she would like each one bezel set with birthstones for herself, her husband and her two children….. and The Family Ring was born!
As it happens, we confirmed this order just before going to Germany to the international jewellery trade fair Inhorgenta. It was perfect timing as it meant that Sophie and I could hand pick the gemstones for the ring. We spent quite some time walking around the hundreds of gemstone suppliers stands looking for the exact size and colour required.
We melt gold into a straight bar before rolling it through our rolling mill to make it the correct width and thickness
Once we were back in the workshop we set to work. The customer didn’t have enough gold for four rings so we added some new 18ct gold to the mix. This was all melted together to make a large bar of metal which was then rolled through our rolling mill over and over until it was the correct dimensions for the rings. The metal was cut into 4 lengths which were turned up into rings and soldered together. The settings were carefully soldered in position and, finally, the rings went to our stonesetter to be set.
The end result was beautiful and, most importantly, our customer was delighted! She now has 4 truly bespoke rings which have lots of sentimental value, and she was involved in the designing process too. If you would like to discuss a bespoke piece or remodelling old jewellery, please feel free to contact us here or drop into us in the Westbury Mall – you won’t be disappointed!
