Whether it was the advent of spring, the task of cleaning my outdated wardrobe, or just a lifelong fixation with the color green, I had to build this ring this past month.

Having recently acquired a couple of cat’s eye chrysoberyls, I was anxious to use them in some stunning piece. I think we pulled it off, don’t you?

I began with a simple bezel of extruded blue wax. This is a softer wax, perfect for forming. Bending the wax to within a millimeter tolerance of the stone, I secured it on the bottom with a more rigid piece of Ruby Red wax, extending this out 2mm all around for diamond seats. I could visualize the soft green of this stone set off by white gold, and a circlet of diamonds between the limey cat’s eye and the sage sapphires seemed to be the perfect touch.

Here is the beginning layout. I apologize for the deplorable quality of this shot, I think my camera had a bad sandwich for lunch that day…

Once the oval was in place around the bezel, I had to measure off and cut sixteen individual diamond seats in the wax- all the same size. I then had to dig through our loose diamond inventory for sixteen perfectly matched two-point (0.02ct) round diamonds. The seats then have to be cut to the depth of each individual stone, as there is the occasional deep or shallow stone.

I then built another oval circlet, this one wider and set lower, giving this ring that stepped appearance which will be evident in the closeups.

This oval circlet was fused underneath, and sixteen green sapphires were chosen for color match, spread, depth (in very small diamonds, depth means nearly nothing, but in colored stones, depth can throw off the look) and tone. Yes, color and tone are two different things :)

Here is a photo of the seats being cut for the sapphires. I seem to have acquired an extra finger or two in this pic, and check out that junior-high nail polish!

The red streaks in the bottom left of the pic are not blood, as some people assume, but melted red wax that gets swiped off my tool every few seconds. If the heat tools aren’t cleaned properly, the wax builds up around the neck and eventually drips onto my work at jsut the most inopportune moments!

These seats were tricky to cut, because not only did they have to fit perfectly near each other, they had to tuck just under the diamonds, not beside. It made for a tight fit, but I think that’s what we were wanting…

Here is the base of the ring, before the addition of the shank, struggling with finding the perfect seats for the stones. Colored sapphires often come cut in all manner of styles, and with large lots it is a challenge to find some that really match!

Also you can see how the stone fits into the wax bezel. We need to make it a tiny bit bigger, since the casting shrinks, and a tiny bit taller, to compensate for metal loss during finishing.

After building thirty-two individual prongs, and being careful not to flow hot wax all over the tops of the tiny stones, adding a shank, and flowing the shank design in with the stone setting design, this is what the ring looks like, nearly ready for casting:

We’ll cover the actual lost wax cast process in a future post. For now, here’s the raw casting, fresh from the investment plaster!

Yes, we cast those bad boys right in place! Only diamonds, rubies, and sapphires of small size and clear insides can be cast in. Everything else is handset. Corundum and graphite can handle heat, if the crystal matrix is sturdy and we do some special tricks to the casting process. Jason will cover that later…

By the way, the ring to the left is a custom mother’s ring job, while the one lying down (already cut off the tree) is this item on our website, also in green sapphire, diamond, and white gold!

Here’s another shot of the rough casting, with traces of the gray-white investment plaster still clinging to the underside of the ring!

Several hours of polishing, tumbling, filing, grinding, and deburring later (not in that specific order!), the ring is ready for its center stone. We have left the slit in the middle to pop that stone out should it want to sit canter-wonky on us…

And- Emily set the stone with her expert hands… here you have it!

Side view,

We even made the underside look pretty!

Here’s the next project sitting my desk, waiting to be wrapped up. We’re taking votes on this ring, which is a lovely elongated cushion cut greenish aquamarine flanked by diamonds. Yellow gold, or white? Let us know:

So there you are, how we make our magic here at Wexford Jewelers. An idea, thirty-odd hours of manual work, sensitive equipment, and tender loving care. This ring is available for purchase or further drool right here.