Three Tones Braided Wedding Rings

Confirmed rings design before going to production

awesome pair

HIS ring

HER ring

“Love was a feeling completely bound up with color, like thousands of rainbows superimposed one on top of the other.” 

― Paulo Coelho

This assignment was recommend by a diamond supplier from Singapore (still have no idea who the person is :P) The bride - a very soft spoken young lady, went around Malaysia and Singapore to look for a capable goldsmith to take up this task. A three tones 18K gold rings (i.e. yellow, rose and white gold) with 76 pieces of 1.25 mm diamonds to be deliver in 3 weeks time. Nobody dare to take up the challenge due to lots of testing has to be done especially the three tones braided part and so many uncertainty in the production flow. 

Ok.....the design is something we always wanted to try on, plus we can imagine how beautiful the rings are going to be. These tempting facts make us just can't resist the challenges. 

My part is art work presentation, I took 2 days and nights to think and try on the weaving effect so it looks like hand braid. At the beginning, the HER ring is plain. Then she decided to add diamonds onto it to enhance it elegant.  And she is right, the micro pave diamond setting really create an awesome effect!

After art work confirmation, Chin start do some testing on the braid using silver cords. He did a few attempts before reaching a consistent and tide braid. Then worked on actual material - yellow, rose and white gold. The time is getting short! We were in tense when the cords broke during the braiding process - I meant a few times! (Due to too thin) Chin have to re-mill the gold cords then repeat the whole process again.  OMG!  

But still we manage to make it. Finally, the beautiful three colour gold cord were tide together in harmony. :D

The third challenge is the diamond selecting process. To match their budget, we try to look for the par rate diamonds. But they are too small (1 mm size - like dandruff??), too cloudy and yellowish in colour. Then we decide to choose the 1.25 mm diamonds with quality we can accept.  We make some adjustment on the diamond quantity but the cost is still within their budget.

Chin take almost 2 days just to set the diamonds. I told the ring owner, Chin make the rings with sweats and tears, plus his eyes were so stress and sore that he can feel they tend to fall off.  She just laughed :) The happy ending is the rings owner like them. She said they look even more beautiful compare to the picture - INDEED!

Celtic Knots Wedding Bands

CAD art works

lovely matching wedding bands

the rings even match the embroidery of her tops

the weaving knots

Material: Palladium Silver

My favorite Celtic wedding ring is the Celtic Knot. The rugged twists and turns of the Celtic knot symbolize the unending love that binds two people together in marriage, and are thought to symbolize the interconnectedness through life. 

In fact this is one of my favorite project. Ample of time to plan and execute, the rings were deliver half a year later. Thanks to this couple - both artists, have full trust in us. Never call until the last month and the timing was just right. 

I took about two weeks to plan (on and off) for CAD drafting. When seeing the knots go, feel just like playing a game. Knowing the restriction of the CNC machine, plus making sure the Celtic knot proportion is right, then have to calculate the total repeat pattern to be fit into their rings sizes. 

At first glance, I though the man ring is more difficult to do but most of the time, I was struggle with the lady's simple knot design. The man's ring was blacken underneath, which highlighted the complicated knots texture. 

Her wedding band is perfectly match to the engagement ring. (as you can see from the pictures) The rings picture was taken with her black fine embroiderer blouse and everything just came out right. Their stylemaah....

Her very precious - Claddagh Celtic Ring

 Today,  I sms her the first thing in the morning to check on whether she is find with Palladium silver. The answer is wonderful - so from  now onwards she can have more option of jewelry design with affordable price. No  more strictly 916 gold jewelry :O

 The first email was sent during Chinese New year, so it is about 4 months plus gathering total of 4o over ding-dong mails. She is a real busy OL.

 I like her character, a very passionate young lady with very great interest in Claddagh Celtic ring. She shared her experience with us on getting the similar ring via internet, but the ring design was different. It came without the weaving part, only hands holding heart. That wasn't a good experience, cause the weaving trully enhance the beauty of the whole Claddagh design. Something really missing here....

 At first she wasn't very confident on the material -Palladium Silver, cause her skin is ultra sensitive. I can say a "Fleshy Low Quality Metal Detection Machine". Her sensitivity occur even within a few hours of carrying the jewelry.

 All we can promise is to replace her with a new ring with 916 gold without charging workmanship. Anyway, this project provide a positive result on "Sensitive Resistant". However, need longer time to reconfirm if she is really ok with palladium silver.

Wedding Ring- Celtic Trinity Design

This customer is from Sabah, the longest distant communication ever. The whole communication was through phone and email. He provide me with the rings measurement and a photo of the design. I have quote two material as well as the artworks before getting his approval. Then the deal got stuck a bit due to my delivery of Dawn and something just happen that she need to stay in NICU for about a week in Hospital Selayang. I really appreciate his consideration.
The photo of the finished rings was email to him before the delivery. Of cause clearance of balance must be done before posting. There is one problem that still yet to be solve, which is the ring are too small for them due to the measurement was not accurate. From this case, I will have to insist the customers to go to their local jewelry retailers to confirm the measurement prior making order from me.

Cliff and Mikie

This is my first jewelry project that make use of Rolland MDX-15 to engrave on wax to create the molds. The results was not as good as I have expected. I did not realize the taper effect create by the engraving knife until whole mold is finished craved. The rings surface had been thinned to a spoiled original Celtic design. Besides that wax substrates become sticky and clot in between the small gaps of the design. I have done both side engraving and try to solve the taper effect but still can't get the exact engrave point when the mold was flip over. At last I decide to use a really sharp engrave knife and engrave maximum depth of 15mm. It gives a better results. As conclusion, I prefer to use modeling board to run on such patterns mold.

Thanks to Cliff and Mikie, to let me have these photos posted. It is great to see some old jobs, just like seeing old friends.