Thursday, January 7, 2010

Flower sterling ring, a Christmas gift for my mom.


This past Christmas, I decided to make a surprise ring for my mom. She has a gold ring in Ruby, similar to the the picture, but she would like to have it in Sapphire.

First, I wasn't sure if I could do it as it looks so complicated. Then after some discussion with my teacher, I decided I would like to attempt it.

It's a challenging design for me as I have never make a cup bezel with prong setting from scratch... may be I should say, I have never done a prong setting.

I decided to approach it from engineering point of view. The basic shape of the cup bezel is a cone. The diameter of the stone is 10mm. Circumference of the stone would be 3.14X10mm=31.4 mm. I need a quarter of a circle to make the cone. One full circle would be 125.6 mm. The radius would be 20 mm. Then I have to divide to even 4 part2 (22.5 degree angle) to make prongs. Cut it, shape it and it should be done... right? Well... almost.

I did 3 trial and errors until I finalized the pattern. Then, the "flower" parts needs to be cut and shape. And then the "ring" part needs to be cut. Those three parts needs to be assembled to make a ring. Then the moment of truth... putting the Sapphire in the prong setting.

I should say with God blessings, everything went well as planned in a timely manner. It's probably not so quite perfect piece but it's very close. The best part is because I made it myself. It is truly the best gift that I ever given to my mom. Wouldn't you agree?

PS: If you would like to see the "behind the scene" pictures, please visit my facebook " Bigib Art Jewelry "

No comments: