Sterling silver acoustic guitar urn for ashes.
This guitar was made from a picture of a guy’s guitar. The body of the guitar is hollow and a silver plate is soldered on the back to hold in the ashes.
jewelery
All posts tagged jewelery
We refinish rings to like new condition all the time. But I always love refinishing an engagement ring right before the wedding day. It is rewarding to make it look it’s best for that special day.
This classic platinum ring required some prong work and needed to be totally repolished for the big day. Instead of sanding out the light scratches and small dings, I used a tungsten burnisher to move and manipulate the malleable metal back into the dents. Much less material is removed. And the best part, the surface becomes harder when you work the surface with the burnisher, which makes it more scratch resistant.
Refined
We have had positive feedback of our repair/custom shop visible from the showroom. I have great response regarding this blog. We have found that people are genuinely curious and interested in what happens at the jeweler’s bench.
After watching some videos on sharpening my goldsmithing skills, I thought how cool it would be to have a bench monitor for our customers. My Mantis bench microscope, that I love, has an awesome big brother that is outfitted with a webcam. That would be nice to have, however, it is $2500, so that is not happening any time soon. My solution: I took an old laptop and dedicated it to a good webcam and ran a wire through the wall to a monitor in the showroom. The WebCam is aimed towards my bench pin and covers a pretty good viewing area of where all the action takes place. When jewelry is brought back to me for inspection, the customer can see how I am poking and prodding, checking for loose stones. They can watch me, from a close up perspective, tightening their stones. I can even press record and document the entire inspection including audio.
side notes: I do not have a live feed of the microphone to the show room. My singing would surely drive away customers.
Also found it frustrating that the Logitech C920 webcam software does not support a full screen view. I found free third party software to fit the bill.
This ring was in need for a channel to be rebuilt. I was to only repair and rebuild the one channel on the sapphire/diamond band closest to the diamond band.
I first rolled a gold wire in the rolling mill to flatten it out. I gave a sweeping arch to match the channel.
I saw that it would be easier to unsolder the rings, so I could have better access to the side of the ring. I tacked the new channel in place with the laser welder.
I then flowed solder across the entire top.
Here is the new channel shown after the initial sanding.
Instead of sanding out the wear-and-tear scratches from the shank, I burnished out the dings with a tungsten burnisher.
I polished and soldered the rings back together.
Now it really shows how worn the other channel is. But it was a huge improvement. The ring looks great.
This is a remounting of the customer’s diamonds from an invisible set princess cut and baguette ring and two round brilliant cut diamond bands. (I do not have a before picture). Invisible set rings look cool but can not take much abuse or much wear and tare. She was constantly having loose stones. She lost stones enough times to finally redo the ring. We channel and prong set the diamonds for a more secure setting method.
It’s always a good day when you set a big stone and have no problems. I mean, the unthinkable: chipping the stone as you pull down the prongs with the pliers. I only ask what the stone is worth AFTER I am done. Today was very good that I didn’t ask until after. 😉
This ring came together so effortlessly. In talking to Denise about the wish list for her remount diamond ring, this idea popped up and we went with it. I remember how easy the random wires almost placed themselves. It was an auto-pilot moment and I was in the zone. It is a great feeling to have as an artist when everything just flows right.
This multi piece casting features a green tourmaline housed in a high polished, concave yellow gold bar that reflects the stone’s color. I also love the beefy square prongs that become more of a design element then just holding the stone.
She has a thing for orange. She was sure she wanted orange fire opal for her center stone in her engagement ring. However, it is not a great stone for everyday ware. It is quite soft. So, I introduced her to padparadscha sapphire. (Lab created). It has a great intense orange color and is 9 on the mohs scale and it would be a fully faceted stone. I drew up some designs based on her wish list. We custom made a stunning ring with two diamonds flanking the 1/2 bezel set padparadscha in 14k super white gold. We incorporated the same orange stones in his wedding band. It made for a wonderful wedding set in orange.
Atlas Jewelers Bench Talk 