Maire's Ring

Thanks to the owner and proprietor of Windfall Gallery in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill, Maire was referred to me for custom-designed and hand-made jewelry. Maire had visited Asia many years ago and had bought stones there; she finally wanted to do something with them. When I visited her, she showed me her treasures. I immediately gravitated to the emerald and said that it would make a fine ring. Maire agreed. We then discussed the best way to show off the stone, and what she wanted in a ring. What I need to know from her, then, was: fit, overall size of the ring, width of the shank, decorative elements around the stone. To this end, I brought some rings I had made as well as my drawing pad to illustrate different designs.

In the end, Maire made what I consider elegant choices in the overall size of the ring, the simplicity of a single decorative element, a shank where the stone rises slightly above the finger, and a moderately slender shank. I committed to making a couple of sample decorative elements and shanks for her to choose among.

The first thing I do (and if you read my blogs, I apologize for repeating myself) is make the setting (bezel) for the stone. The emerald is a faceted stone with a shallow pavilion (that’s the part below the girdle or fattest part of the stone). This meant that the ring would not sit up very high like a diamond. It also meant that I would make the setting with an inner bezel so that the stone would be supported just underneath the girdle. Below is a picture of the stone and bezel, and you’ll see what I mean.

My first design idea is below. Because the bezel is higher than would be with a cabochon stone, I would need to raise the twisted wire decorative element so that it would be closer to the top of the stone. So I used square wire to elevate the twisted wire and I thought to have the square wire visible from the top.

I really appreciate smartphones now, having resisted getting one until this year, because I could easily show Maire the ideas. She was not crazy about this one, didn’t want to see the square wire, and wanted a different twisted wire element. I went back to my bench and created another idea as you see below.

I texted the picture to Maire who texted me that she loved this one. So I soldered the square wire (which is not visible at all from the top) to the setting and began to fabricate shanks to go with the setting. I made two of them, one from half round wire, the other from square wire so that they have different profiles and thicknesses. In either case, though, the shanks would have what’s called a comfort fit so that when putting the ring on and off, the ring slides smoothly and then sits without roughness anywhere on the finger. Below is a picture of the two shanks. By the way, Maire’s ring size was 6 3/4.

I mailed the shanks to Maire, the pandemic having caused us to be locked down. She picked the half round shank (the one to the right), and when I received it back from her, I proceeded to clean it up, so to speak, finishing the sanding and ensuring the shank would balance on the back of the setting. See the picture below to understand the balancing act.

I did not solder the shank to the setting at this point; rather, I put the shank into my tumbler so that it would be burnished and come out of the tumbler beautifully bright and smooth. This part of the process takes two hours, and I can do other things in the meantime. So, I soldered the twisted decorative element to the square wire, cleaned up any solder mess, and then soldered the shank to the setting. I spend a lot of time sanding the metal so that the actual polishing time will be minimized. I then began polishing the ring with the first stage polish, set the stone, and then final polished the ring. I decided the decorative element needed some highlighting, so I used some liver of sulfur which darkened the element slightly. I texted the below picture to Maire who was anxious to wear it.

It was a pleasure to work with Maire and make her this ring. She loves it, and I am thrilled.