I was sent pictures of a classic Tama steel snare. I carved this ring as a one piece wax with shell, rims and lugs combined. After casting, I laser welded the tension rods on. 
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This customer wanted a vintage look with hand engraving for this remounting of her sapphires and diamonds. I love using stones with sentimental value in new designs. It can carry on memories and stories.
I have really enjoyed learning hand engraving techniques. It has always fascinated me. I hope to continue to learn and explore this facet of jewelry making.
This was an exciting drum ring commission for me. I have been doing custom jewelry for 24 years. Atlas Jewelers is a trusted part of our community and I am happy and blessed to be creating jewelry here in my town. I primarily meet every person that I make a ring for and I get to know them through the process of making them jewelry. But Steve contacted me via the web and was one of my first commissions since the launch of MusicianRings.com, and I probably will never meet him. Steve is highly passionate about drumming and was starting a new chapter in his life by getting married. I am thrilled to see that my musician rings, that I love so much, are reaching out so much further than our neighborhood. I have since made guitar rings and sent them out to Germany and Australia. Totally mind blowing to me.
We discussed the many options and planned out the ring. I carved a wax, what was to become the shell and rims, as one piece and also carved a long bar which would eventually be cut up to be the lugs.
Each was cast in 14K super white gold.
I sanded and polished the comfort fit band to a mirror finish.
Each lug was cut, filed and polished.
The 10 lugs were polished, positioned and laser welded in place.
I drilled a hole in the rim for each tension rod and laser welded the 20 gauge wire into place for a crisp, tight appearance.
I just love how it turned out.
Thanks Steve, and keep on drumming.
We stepped up the quality of the classy engagement ring with VS clarity stones and 14k super white gold that does not require rhodium plating.
I carved the wax model and used round burs that were slightly smaller then the stones being used. The reason why is because I knew that I was going to redo the micro prongs once it is was in metal.
I had to make the halo 3 times to get the right combination of size of diamonds to number of diamonds to go perfectly around.
I cast the pieces separately so I could nicely polish the gallery before assembly. I set the diamonds in the mounting. I stuck the blank halo in shellac to hold the piece while I set the stones. I sanded and polished it up and soldered it to the mounting.
I cut the bottom off a thick basket head and polished up before soldering it in place. I set the major stone and gave it a final polish.
This ring was a fun challenge. Since most of the work of stone setting and graving is done in metal, it would seem that the wax carving would have been easy. However, keeping good symmetry was very challenging. I did most of the carving under 6x magnification.
I used tacky wax to stick the diamonds on the wax model to plan out the bead setting and to show the customer.
Because of all the cut outs, the wax required extra sprues to ensure a complete casting.
After I cut the seat for the center oval, I used dividers to score evenly spaced marks on the bezel. Then I used a jeweler’s saw to cut through the bezel. The hammer hand piece seemed to effortlessly move each little prong over the girdle to tighten the diamond. Whereas with a solid bezel, the tends to be a lot of hammering.
Thank you Fred from Uncommon Design for the nice bright cutting on the bead set diamonds.
I get to enjoy challenging myself making jewelry for the show case sometimes. This one was pretty fun. I started with carving two identical bands, cast them up in 14 karat yellow gold and micro bead set 1.3mm diamonds. The assembly of the different length bars came next. Each one was cut to length and soldered in place. Lastly, the bezel set 3/4 carat round brilliant cut diamond was set then laser welded in place.
I carved the wax model of this engagement ring to match the existing wedding band that was her mother’s. Using her stones, this new ring carries all the sentimental value and it looks like these two rings were made at the same time. 
I was just going to refinish and rhodium plate the three rings.
I suggested that I solder them all together.
I noticed that the thin band would be perfect to act as spacer/shim to fill the gap created by the base of heads holding the princess cut diamonds.
The marked area was cut out to create a flat surface for the diamond band to fit flush.
Here is the cut band fit into place, soldered and polished.
The beauty of this wedding set is the history of the parts but I didn’t learn of all the history and meaning and story behind these rings until after I completed the work.
I think it is awesome to keep and use sentimental jewelry. This has quite a progression. As she put it:
“…We upgraded to the larger center stone (when we could afford a bigger and nicer set than my original one). I kept the band from that set and I wore it with the the solitare for quite a few years.
When our first son passed away, hubby bought me one of the smaller stones in honor/remebrance of our little one we lost, and to remind me that I was as strong, unbreakable and beautiful as what the diamond represented. Once Peyton was born he bought me another stone in honor of him!
On our 10th anniversary we had the three diamonds all set into one ring. It symbolizes the family bond.
On our 15th anniversary he bought me the diamond band. I could never part with the thin band because that was what he placed on my finger when we said ‘I do ‘.”
Like the age rings of a growing tree, this wedding set shows the triumphs and tribulations of what life brings walking hand in hand with the ones you love.
Here is another cool custom snare drum wedding ring. It all started when I saw his Drum Workshop shirt and asked him if he has one of those awesome drum sets. He does. (I’m so jealous).
I showed him my drum ring and the next thing you know, his wife says that he has to have one. Lucky guy. We got to work on his drum ring.
This 14k yellow and white gold ring is made up of 28 parts. The shell and rims were milled in wax. I did them in different color waxes just to help us in the shop keep straight the color of metal each were to be cast in.
Shown here is the shell, rims and lugs assembled after casting. The lugs were fabricated from a rod of white gold, cut into little slabs. Each was concave to have as much contact with the shell as possible . It took about an hour just to space out the 8 lugs and to laser tacked them in place. Then I soldered them on at the bench with a torch.
The 14k white gold 20 gauge wire used for the tension rods were laser welded in place.
A florentine graver was randomly used to give a wood grain effect.
This custom remount pretty much kept the same classic design as the original (not pictured) but the goal was to do a more lighter, feminine version in white gold. The micro prong set diamonds helped lightening up the feel of the ring from the original bulky 3 channel design. We also opened up the shoulders of the ring to make it more airy. We did a cool square shank and cast it in super white 14k gold alloy that does not need rhodium plating.
Atlas Jewelers Bench Talk 