About a year ago I was at a rather fun holiday party - there were copious amounts of home made eggnog - and I had the luck to meet a very beautiful and talented graphic artists. After a few drinks we had hammered out a deal of sorts, a logo for my line in exchange for a cocktail ring of my design. The requirements were: the ring had to have an Etruscan inspiration and my logo had to be clean, bold and of a style that would not look dated in 50 years (naturally those are also the features/qualities I like to think I myself posses).
Bargain struck, we both got to work. She finished in a matter of weeks, providing me with several excellent options and of course the final product which I currently use. My end of the bargain was a little slower in coming, but 6 short months later I did deliver this ring - "Etruscan Ring" was inspired by jewelry and motifs of that era. It is fabricated entirely by hand of 18kt yellow gold and features a 2.97ct rhodolite garnet that I cut. Nothing on this ring is standard, the gold sheet and stock was all made custom from ingots and the stone was cut from a piece of rough I acquired from a dealer in Africa.
The process of creating this was not one that involved advance planning. I had a general idea and just started working on it to see what would evolve. The lack of planning was a major reason for the amount of time it took to finish. It would take much less time to re-create the style, but there was a lot of trial and error involved in getting things to look the way I wanted.
Step 1: Create the basic components. The ingots were formed using cavities carved in the charcoal block. They were then formed into sheet by annealing one of the ingots and putting it through the rolling mill. A rolling mill is an adjustable set of steel rollers which are progressively adjusted down until the sheet is the proper gauge. The ingot is annealed after each pass through the rolling mill as that softens the metal by altering the crystal structure and allowing the thinning process to progress faster and with less likelihood of the metal cracking.
The wire was formed in a similar way but instead of smooth rollers in the mill, a grooved set is used which shapes the wire.
The picture below shows the charcoal block. The wire and the sheet. I have cut a circle out of the sheet which will be used for the domed portion of the ring.
Step 2: Forming the individual components of the ring. Originally the design called for a gold dome covered in concentric circles of fine twisted wire. A lot of Etruscan gold work was decorated in that fashion, but as I started to put it together it just looked too busy and messy - it is something I would like to revisit trying at a later date. The wire you see here was discarded later in the project, but the dome was used. It was created by placing the gold disc in a dapping block and moving it from flatter/larger domed indentations to progressively smaller forms until I ended up with the size/height that I wanted. I dapping block is generally made out of metal or wood; it has a series of indentations in it, they can be any shape but round is most common. There are a series of daps that fit into each indentation - you put the sheet of metal between the indentation and you use the mating dap to form the metal.
Step 3: I cut the dome down to the height that I wanted for the ring and soldered a backing on to it for strength. I had always intended to use the faceted garnet for this ring, but since it is did not have a flat back I could not set it on the dome to get an idea of placement and eventual look. The little amethyst cab in the pic below was just a placeholder while I figured out the next step. The dome has been sanded up to a 400 grit level here - it is a little hard to tell from the above picture, but when it comes out of the dapping block its surface is far from perfect and even.
Step 4: I cut a small circle in the center of the dome. The hole had to be just slightly smaller than the stone so that it would fit down and even but not fall through. The bezel around the stone was cut as a strip from the left over sheet seen in the first picture. It was soldered and formed as a circle separately, then the bottom was sanded even and smooth and it was soldered to the top of the dome. There are different "grades" of solder that flow/melt at slightly different temperatures. This situation is an example of why you need to do the first join with the highest flow temp solder. Otherwise, if I had used the same temp solders to form the bezel and then to attach it to the dome then I would have run the risk of the bezel falling apart.
Step 5: Connect the pieces. I did not want to interupt the clean look of the dome by piercing it to attach some sort of band and I did not like the idea of simply soldering a circle to the bottom of the dome and calling it done. I came up with an idea to tension set the dome between two upright arms that came off an inner ring. In order to make that I had to draw some very thick round "wire". The following picture shows the new batch of components prior to final forming. For scale, the dome is a little over an inch across.
Step 6: I soldered two strips of the thick wire parallel to each other and formed them in a "U" shape around the inner ring. Once soldered together I bent them in and out to get just the right amount of tension to hold the dome in place.
Here you see the ring on a ring mandrel. By putting it on the mandrel I was able to look at it from various angles as if it were on a finger and get an idea of what the best height for the dome would be.
Step 7: After making a decision about where the dome should sit I notched the sides so that the dome would sit on a slight shelf. The shelf added stability but was not visible while looking at the ring from above. The dome was soldered to the shelves - the tension was enough to hold the dome in place, but a good knock at the wrong angle would have sent it flying.
Step 8: I cut the extra height off the sides and domed the tips to give it the look of granulation, a common technique used in Etruscan jewelry.
Step 9: Setting the stone. When bezel setting a tough metal like 18kt it is necessary to use a hammer handpiece. A slight miss with that tool though can easily mar the surface of adjacent metal. Below you can see that I covered the areas not being worked on in masking tape. It is amazing how much proteciton it affords. From here I placed the stone in the bezel and worked my away around the stone forming the metal.
Step 10: Once the stone was held firmly in place and there was no more hammering to do on the bezel I removed the tape. The result at this point looks rough.
Step 11: Using files, sandpaper and silicone abrasive wheels I smoothed the metal and polished it. The end result is a shiny, beautiful (at least in my opinion) ring. From here the ring was sent to a Robert Diamante up in Maine to photograph (his beautiful picture is in a different section of this site) and then happily handed over to its new owner.